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Harry fielded several dark looks from Hermione over the course of the morning.
"Did you obliviate them?" Hermione demanded once she was sure they were alone.
"Not intentionally but I was hoping that they wouldn't remember the attack or being up near the Room of Requirement when I stunned and confounded them the last time so my magic might have done it unintentionally," Harry replied honestly.
"Magic doesn't work like that," Hermione snapped.
Harry didn't say anything to Hermione because it would've been cruel, but he'd found since his magic was unblocked that it frequently did work like that when you had so much of it to spare.
Hermione huffed at him. "Harry, I swear if I find out they've been obliviated..." she threatened.
"Hermione, I don't even know how to cast the obliviate spell. The only person I've ever seen use it was Lockhart and I didn't see him successfully cast a spell in the whole year he taught us unless it was a cosmetic charm. If I'd deliberately obliviated them it either may not have worked at all or they wouldn't remember their own names. In fact, making Malfoy forget how to say 'wait until my father hears about this' would've been the highlight of my day, but I'd probably have had to obliviate him back to toddlerhood to get rid of that attitude, and they'd definitely have called the Aurors and had them question everybody if I'd done that," Harry replied.
Neville laughed at that. "Harry's right, since my magic was unblocked it does things like that, kind of like accidental magic adds to my spells when I'm not calm enough to control it, he admitted.
"But Harry didn't have his magic unblocked, he was the strongest wizard in our class, he can't have had a block," Hermione said impatiently.
Harry looked at her in shock, speechless.
"Yes he did," Neville replied. "How haven't you noticed? He had a much bigger gain in magical strength than I did." Harry had done a reasonable job of hiding how much magic he had gained while in class but he hadn't tried to hide it from his friends in training, though he only really let loose when he was alone with Neville, Luna and Susan, since Ron and Hermione tended to be horrified by many of the spells he was learning', and jealous about his magical prowess.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Hermione demanded.
"Because you would have been upset that I didn't ask you for help to unblock it and I couldn't do that to my best mate," Harry said bluntly, glad that Ron wasn't with them.
"Ron and I aren't dating and it's not like you need to have a relationship with someone to have sex, Harry. He would have understood," Hermione said.
"Ron would absolutely not have understood!" Harry exclaimed, frustrated at her wilful blindness. "He'd have been really hurt and probably never have forgiven either of us. And if you think it would've been just sex then you're an idiot. You're thinking like a muggle but you know Bloody well that virginity means something in this society. Not to mention that sharing magic like that creates a permanent bond even more intimate than the sex itself would have."
"You're telling me that you're both in love with the witches you used to unblock your magic? Are you going to marry her?" Hermione scoffed.
"Yes, I am," Neville said quietly. "I've written to Gran to start the approach to her father and we'll hopefully sign betrothal contracts over the summer."
"I will if we both survive the war," Harry replied slightly sadly as if he didn't believe it would happen.
"Of course, you're going to survive," Hermione stated, distracted from the argument.
"Dumbledore doesn't think so, Hermione. Voldemort is the most powerful dark lord in over three hundred years and he's currently immortal," Harry said bluntly. "Unless I can find a way to make him mortal before he attacks me again the chances of my survival aren't great."
"Then why haven't you asked me to help?" Hermione demanded, totally forgetting her earlier argument.
"It's some of the darkest magic in existence, borderline necromancy. You're not going to find anything on it in the library, and you'd ruin your reputation looking for it," Harry said gently.
"There must be something I can do to help," Hermione said.
"Can you research founders items that still exist. I can't explain why it's so important here now but he was fascinated with them. They might be the key," Harry requested, rolling his eyes. What did she think he'd been doing when he asked them to help keep an eye on what Malfoy was up to.
"You're serious? You're not just giving me busy work to placate me?" Hermione asked suspiciously.
"No I'm not, but I promised Dumbledore not to tell you, and even if I was prepared to break my word, I couldn't tell Ron and neither could you. Dumbledore figured out how he didn't die when I was a baby and the Founders artefacts are a part of that." Harry said.
"That makes no sense, Harry," Hermione said scoldingly.
"No I suppose it doesn't without the rest of the explanation that I can't tell you, I'll understand if you don't want to help but you did offer," Harry agreed seriously.
"And you really won't tell me the rest?" Hermione said sadly.
"Hermione, normally you'd be the first person telling me that I needed to do what Dumbledore said," Harry pointed out wryly.
Hermione huffed. "You're right, but I don't like it when you use logic against me like that."
-o0o-
Unsurprisingly, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle's attackers were never found since the spell residue was too confused for any clear wand signatures, and the three boys not having time to get their stories straight before they were separated and questioned weren't consistently able to say who had attacked them or how they were attacked so their accounts of the event weren't taken seriously unless they were willing to repeat them under ministry truth serum which none of them were. The three Slytherins recovered and returned to classes without ever regaining any memories of the day of the attack. Snape still did try to accuse Harry but this time Minerva interrupted pointing out that the location they were found in suggested that the culprits were most likely fellow Slytherins, and when Severus continued to insist that Potter was responsible, threatened to report him to the school board of governors if he continued to make accusations without proof or continued in his general harassment of her Gryffindors.
-o0o-
Harry had been using the map to keep track of Malfoy, with Ron, Neville and Hermione's assistance. Ron and Hermione no longer criticized him for this, or accused him of being paranoid but both of them expressed their opinion that they didn't need to keep a close eye on Malfoy anymore since they'd destroyed the cabinet.
"You can't know that that was the only plan he had in the works, and the last two plans he had nearly killed Katie and you Ron. We need to try to keep an eye on him so we can prevent whatever he tries next. He won't have given up," Harry retorted.
"Does he even know that the cabinet's gone yet?" Neville asked.
"I don't think so. I haven't seen him go up there yet and I'd assume we're going to notice the tantrum he throws when he finds out," Harry replied.
Several days after they returned to classes, Harry saw the dot marked Malfoy make its way up to the seventh floor and disappear into the room of requirement. He got his cloak and went to wait for the Slytherin to come out wanting to see his reaction. To his surprise Malfoy didn't storm out of the room in a fury, instead he was pale and shaking, Harry followed his progress on the map but he went straight back to the Slytherin dorms.
"I thought Malfoy would be furious when he found the cabinet missing, but he seemed terrified," Harry said to Neville and Susan when they met him for training.
"He failed. I don't think you-know-who is very tolerant of failure," Susan replied.
"If you're right about that necklace that injured Katie and the poisoned mead also being his attempts then he's failed three times," Neville said. "I don't know that I'd want to go home and admit that to his father let alone to Voldemort."
"He's desperate, but a cornered snake is always the most likely to strike. We need to keep a close eye on him, who knows what he will try next," Harry said.
"But in his desperation he's likely to lash out or act rashly, we might not be aware of what he's going to do until he does it," Susan said.
"You think he will go for a direct attack, that isn't his way unless he knows his prey is outnumbered or Snape's around the corner waiting to back him up and assign detention to his victims," Harry replied.
"You think Snape sets him on you on purpose?" Susan asked curiously.
"It seems like it, or he knows Malfoy will start a fight any time he comes across me or one of my friends on our own and follows him around hoping for a chance to punish us," Harry replied.
"But that isn't fair," Susan said.
Susan, nothing at Hogwarts has ever been fair to me," Harry said wearily.
"I hate to say it Susan, but fair is for Hufflepuffs," Neville agreed, making Susan huff in frustration, that with what she'd seen of Harry's life since the bonding she couldn't refute it.
-o0o-
Dear Harry
I must admit I don't really know what to say. I can understand your desire to have your magic unblocked as quickly as possible but Ginny isn't old enough to consent to a sexual relationship. I'm glad the two of you are putting so much effort into keeping it quiet, you could be in serious trouble if it becomes known that you were together like that before she turns sixteen. I hope that the two of you have gone back to more age appropriate interactions though I understand it can be difficult to do that. Be assured that I will not tell anyone.
I would also advise you to visit Gringotts next time you come home and to ask if there is a family promise ring in your vaults. Ginny's too young for an engagement ring and your mother never wore a promise ring but the Potter family is ancient so there should be at least one. It would go a long way towards appeasing Molly and Arthur if the truth does come out.
I have enclosed my notes on the mirrors, I'm still looking for Sirius' notes but I'm not sure how much more they would have to offer, he was a bit lackadaisical when it came to note taking, he tended to jot a few words down to remind him of things but they didn't always make sense to Peter and I though James seemed to follow what he was meaning a lot of the time and it would spike a solution he hadn't seen before so maybe you could use them too if I find them.
Please try to control your temper with Severus, I know he can be decidedly unpleasant and the grudge he has against you is blatantly unfair, but underneath it all he is on our side, and we need his input.
Take care Pup
Remus Lupin
-o0o-
It was sheer luck that Harry, Neville and Ron had all been able to prove they were in the Transfiguration classroom serving detention for refusing to tell Professor McGonagall why they were out after curfew the night before, the next time Malfoy was attacked. Unlike last time they'd been found almost immediately, trussed up and hanging upside down from the stairs leading down to the dungeons, so Harry and his friends had an alibi for the entire time from when they were last seen until they were found. How they could have got there without the culprits being seen by anybody was a mystery, let alone hung there long enough to have been battered as much as they were by the enchanted beaters bats. Harry suspected a notice-me-not-spell, cancelled by one of the spectators once there was a large enough group of people present to make a spectacle and hide who'd done it.
Again, Snape tried to blame Harry, but McGonagall had stoutly defended him. Dumbledore asked for the students responsible or anyone who knew who was responsible to come forwards but nobody did. Harry was of the opinion that it was impossible that the stairwell had been empty at that time of day and believed that there were probably quite a few Slytherin students who had seen what was happening, or at least enough to be aware of the notice-me-not spell, and deliberately chosen not to notice and walked away leaving the attackers to do what they wanted.
-o0o-
Dear Remus
It wasn't Ginny! Not only am I not stupid enough to ignore the fact she is she underage but I'm not suicidal and anyone taking the virginity of the Weasley twin's little sister at fifteen would have to either have a death wish or be certifiable. Not to mention her other four older brothers and that her boyfriend is a mate of mine, and sleeps in my dorm.
Why is everyone so convinced that I should be interested in dating Ginny Weasley? I don't see her that way at all, we'd barely even be friends if she wasn't Ron's little sister. I know she thinks that she fancies me but she has had a crush on the idea of the boy-who-lived since before we met and I can't tell you how uncomfortable that made me. Even now I couldn't be sure whether her interest is in me as a person or still attracted by the fame and reputation of being the boy-who-lived, and I wouldn't want to have those doubts going into a relationship, nor would I like the expectations that she and her mother seem to have that I'm going to be the love of her life. I can honestly say that I will never date Ginny Weasley, it's too much pressure.
And honestly she may be quieter when there are adults around but personality wise, Ginny's an awful lot like her mother, particularly when it comes to her temper and who in their right mind would want to knowingly marry themselves to someone like that. I've had enough fighting with Voldemort and his followers I want a peaceful life if I survive the war and I wouldn't get that with Ginny and Molly.
Before you ask, it wasn't Hermione either. Please don't try to guess who it was. You would know her from teaching DADA in third year but we really weren't friends then.
Regards
Harry
-o0o-
Dear Harry
Firstly, how trustworthy is this girl? I know you must have trusted her personally, to choose her to unblock your magic with but were you thinking with your head or with your heart or your dick. Forgive my crudity but my concern is genuine and well founded. There are many supporters of you-know-who who would sacrifice their daughter's virginity for a chance to bring you before their master.
I must admit that I was surprised that you didn't choose Hermione or Ginny, they're the only girls you seem to mention in your letters to me, and I thought they'd be the two girls you trust the most. I was also surprised that you were aware of Ginny's feelings for you though I shouldn't have been, wilful ignorance is a valid reaction to girls unrequited interest at your age. Though reading your letter your reasons for not wanting to date Miss Weasley do make a lot of sense, I should have seen those issues before and I'm not sure why I didn't, I've seen how uncomfortable you are when Molly starts to yell.
I have always thought you and Hermione were more suited than you and Ginny but Molly Weasley speaks as if you and Ginny are a couple and I know your mate Ron fancies or possibly is dating Hermione so I could understand you not wanting to go there for his sake.
I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about why your parents put a magical block on you, much less a second one. I would like to tell you that it's possible that they each put one on without mentioning it to the other but it would have been very unlike either of them not to discuss it first, they tended to make all their parenting decisions together. Neither of them said anything to me about it. I remember them mentioning at your first birthday that you were already showing signs of some accidental magic but they seemed more proud than worried about it at the time. Perhaps they became afraid that your accidental magic would show up on the underage magic monitors and give away their location when they went into hiding.
Take care Pup
Remus Lupin
-o0o-
It was the third attack on Malfoy and his two most loyal followers that saw Dumbledore break down and decide to call in the Aurors. The trio were found out near the lake looking like they'd fallen from their brooms from a significant height, badly breaking their arms legs and hips. All three had a severe concussion and memory loss of the time of the accident and many people suggested that they had been out flying at night and simply fallen. Or that one had fallen and the others had fallen trying to catch them. The problem with this theory was that their brooms were still locked in their trunks. Though Harry had no difficulty getting his fellow Gryffindors to believe Malfoy may have borrowed someone else's broom without permission when he mentioned it, nobody came forward claiming their broom was missing or had been tampered with.
"They can't actually have fallen," Hermione pointed out quietly. "The damage is all easily healed. If they'd really fallen from high enough to smash their arms and legs like that, they would have broken their backs or their skulls. They hit their heads much more softly."
"Yeah! I reckon Madam Pomfrey must know that. They're not saying anything because they want whoever did it to think they've got away with it until they're questioned," Harry said, having already discussed it with Susan. "There were Aurors talking to the Slytherins today, I think that we will probably be next."
"They think that a Slytherin did this?" Neville asked.
"Well Snape and Parkinson and a few of the other Slytherins are telling everyone that Harry did it, whether they believe that or not, but everyone else thinks that it would be difficult for anyone from another house to get them out of the dorms and common room in the middle of the night," Ron said.
"Unless they already weren't in the common room or dorms. They could have gone to a meeting and been punished by Voldemort for not having fixed the cabinet," Harry suggested.
"You think he would've waited this long?" Neville said.
"There were still quite a lot of runes in need of repairing, and I wouldn't want to rush it if my father could be one of the people using it," Hermione said.
"Besides, it's still early in the year for Voldie to attack Harry, he wouldn't be in a rush for him to finish it yet," Ron added.
"But would Voldemort have had them brought back to the school and dumped out by the lake?" Neville asked.
"If they aren't the only students marked and he wanted to send a message to the next person he's given the task to," Harry said. "But they would have been there at the meeting too, it Voldie had wanted them there. It doesn't make sense for Voldemort to show the students he's still trying to recruit how he treats his followers."
"And he would have cursed them. Not beat them up like that," Ron added.
"He had to send them back to school. There would have been even more of a fuss made if they'd gone missing, or turned up at St Mungo's," Hermione said.
"Families like the Malfoys would have a private healer willing to go to the house, they wouldn't use St Mungo's," Neville replied.
"What about the Crabbes and the Goyles? Are they that sort of old family too?" Harry asked.
"No, I don't think that they're that kind of wealthy but they couldn't go to St Mungo's if they had the Dark Mark, they'd have to use a healer that wouldn't talk about it, but in that case the healer would have healed up their bones as much as possible and sent them back to school before they were missed," Neville replied. "They'd have to spend the weekend in bed but once the initial healing was done, Snape would be more than capable of dosing them with the potions they needed without drawing attention to the injuries by involving Madam Pomfrey."
"But doesn't that mean that Madam Pomfrey must know they have the Mark?" Hermione said.
"She must have known at least since the first time they were attacked, and I'm sure she would have warned Dumbledore," Ron said.
"Neville's right, so it probably wasn't a meeting with Voldemort, that doesn't mean Draco wasn't sneaking about trying to find another way to let the Death Eaters into the school, or up to something else," Harry suggested.
"Or there was a Slytherin involved in getting them out of the common room. He probably bullies half of them too," Ron said. "It would be easy enough, all they'd have to do was say they'd seen Harry out after curfew doing something embarrassing and the idiots would be running to see it."
"Yes but that would be difficult to do without witnesses and if it happened like that it was possibly long enough before the accident that Malfoy will remember who told him," Harry said.
"I don't care who did it or how. Just promise me that you had nothing to do with it this time," Hermione said looking at each of them in turn.
"It wasn't me, I'm not stupid enough to have left such a mystery. If I was going to drop them from a broom I would have done it in the forest, or at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower," Harry said. He would probably have dropped them into the Acromantula nest, or the middle of the lake, if he thought he'd get away with it. It had been his friends' involvement in capturing them when they'd destroyed the cabinet that had kept the Slytherin trio alive and relatively unharmed.
"They weren't dropped from a broom," Hermione stated frustrated.
"It still wasn't me. If I was going to make it look like they'd fallen from a broom I would have left them in the forest, or at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower, where the lack of a broom wouldn't be suspicious, or broken their brooms and dropped them with them," Harry said.
"It wasn't me," Neville said calmly. "I wasn't involved in any attack other than the first one."
"I'd like to shake the hand of the person who did it but I didn't do it," Ron said. "Harry's right though, this wasn't well planned. Perhaps they weren't lured out of the common room and it was a spur of the moment attack when someone realised that nobody else had seen them together, or someone trying to cover up after they accidentally injured them, defending themselves."
"You couldn't blame someone for defending themselves a little too vigorously against Malfoy, when he's been known to cast the unforgivables without warning, and I wouldn't be surprised if whoever did it tried to hide what happened unless they were a Slytherin," Neville said.
"What are you going to say to the Aurors?" Hermione asked.
"That I was verifiably inside the Gryffindor common room from the end of dinner until breakfast last night, in detention last time when they were strung up in the stairwell and have never walked beyond Snape's classroom down in the dungeons," Harry said firmly.
"It's lucky you weren't training last night," Hermione said suspiciously.
"It wasn't luck, Seamus got sent a bottle of Firewhiskey for his birthday and wanted to party with all of us," Ron replied.
"So that's the second time someone has attacked Malfoy while you had definite plans elsewhere. Do you think they knew that?" Hermione asked.
Harry's mind immediately went to Susan who was aware of both the detention and the party in the dorms but he knew she hadn't been involved and hadn't told anybody about his plans either. Who else would have known, perhaps Luna but she wouldn't attack three people like that. someone trying to do him a favour? Or someone who hated Malfoy enough to want to attack him and didn't want Harry to get the blame or the credit for it? "That would make the attacker someone who sits near us at mealtimes and it wasn't one of our dorm mates, that leaves you, Lavender and Parvati, or one of the Hufflepuffs behind us or possibly Colin Creevey, he was hanging around at dinner last night. You were on your own last night and last time while we were in detention too. You don't hear us accusing you of attacking him," Harry said bluntly.
He didn't for a moment believe Hermione would do such a thing, particularly on her own, but he was annoyed that she kept accusing him of things he didn't do just because she didn't like his suspicions about Malfoy, even after he'd proved that the git had the Dark Mark.
"Or anyone those two mentioned it to, or who overheard them discussing it, they aren't to gossip queens of Hogwarts for no reason," Hermione reminded them.
-o0o-
Dear Remus
I trust this girl completely, far more than I trust Ginny Weasley, whose temper makes her say and do things without thinking about the consequences, and has a tendency to delude herself that her wants are more important than mine or anybody else's. I can't tell you exactly how stupid you are for doubting her without telling you who she is which I've promised I won't do. As well as her loyalty to me, she's definitely an enemy of Voldemort for her own reasons, and the bond means that I would feel it if she tried to lie to me. Also she's smart enough to know that I only feel a percentage of what she feels when she's hurt so for her to even think of letting someone hurt her enough to harm me would be ridiculous.
You're right about the main reason why I wouldn't choose Hermione to assist with unblocking my core, she and Ron aren't actually dating. They have been dancing around the edge of admitting their feelings to each other for so long it's starting to drive me mad and half our dorm are joking about locking them in a broom closet for the night in the hope they catch a clue. Please tell me that my parents weren't this thick about getting together.
Regards
Harry
-o0o-
Even after the third attack, it didn't seem to occur to Malfoy that he and his friends were disliked by the majority of the school, and that even their own housemates couldn't be depended on to come to their defence if they provoked someone into attacking them. Malfoy still strutted around the castle trying to act like he was better than anyone else and Crabbe and Goyle backed him up with whatever he said and did whenever he allowed them to. The only thing that had changed is that Malfoy didn't appear to be spending much time in the room of requirements, or at least Crabbe and Goyle weren't spending time hanging around on the seventh floor, either polyjuiced or as themselves. Whatever his next plan was it obviously didn't depend on the Room of Requirement which meant Harry didn't have to compete to get the room for training.
Harry was concerned that he hadn't been able to find out what Draco was up to now that his plan with the vanishing cabinet had been destroyed. He tried to keep track of him with the Marauder's Map but he wasn't putting as much time into it as he had before and hadn't noticed anything suspicious. HE was spending more time in what looked like his dorm room both with and without Crabbe and Goyle. Harry was also annoyed that he hadn't managed to see who had attacked the trio on the map either, not that he would have told anyone but he wanted to know.
-o0o-
Dear Harry
I wish I could tell you your mother and father found their path to love easy but the truth is that Lily would barely give James the time of day when he first started trying to ask her out. She hated his pranking and his attitude towards the other houses. They definitely weren't pining for each other in secret if that's any consolation to you. There was nothing secretive about James' pining, he was very public about his feelings and the whole of Gryffindor and our year level knew it, including Lily to her exasperation.
It wasn't until seventh year when Head Boy and Head Girl duties threw them together in different situations than before that he started showing enough maturity for her to consider accompanying him to Hogsmeade.
I hope that your trust in this girl is not misplaced but if everything you're telling me is true then she wouldn't be likely to betray you directly even if she isn't trustworthy. Be careful how much you tell her of the workings of the Order. She could do us a lot of damage without putting you personally in danger.
Take care Pup
Remus Lupin
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed and those who followed or favourited this story for your support.
