And here's the sixty sixth chapter of "A Year Too Soon"! Enjoy!
* Review Response:
griffin blackwood, Brockster550, DarkRavie, Yaw613, Nice Egan, Waldie18, thank you for your reviews, folks!
Fuck Names, someone has to make sure the Hero has challenges to overcome... That said, Peter doesn't think the Dark Lord is dead either. He's just not as eager to bring him back.
Luiz4200, Crouch Jr. and Bellatrix are both insane, just in different ways.
eekii8825mac, the tasks will probably be different but with the same general idea behind them.
BMS, for once, Peter is the voice of sanity. Too bad, he can't make Junior listen to him.
* AN: This chapter has not been beta-read.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" franchise. No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.
"speaking"
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A Year Too Soon
Chapter LXVI: The Badge
Once Astoria was finally released from the hospital - the Healers still advised she was careful and didn't exert herself physically or magically unnecessarily for some time yet - the Clique went right back to planning the party. And with a lot of the work already done before the Curse had struck, it wasn't long before the party finally took place.
Naturally, Daphne as the chief organizer of this meet-up made sure to keep the Healers' recommendations in mind, and as such this time around there were no active games by the stream or anything like that, but it was still great fun and a great way to spend a nice summer day in the company of friends.
A short while later, Harry visited the Carrow manor for the second time, to spend more time with Flora and Hestia. Of course, with the twins' grandmother and granduncle around, they couldn't go too far and do the things they really wanted to do. So it was just holding hands and a few chaste kisses on a cheek… At least until they managed to escape deep into the manor's garden and away from the adults' sight. Then they finally let their passion loose, at least as much as they could while their clothes stayed on.
The next couple of weeks were relatively quiet and uneventful with the Clique exchanging letters frequently but not meeting each other in person. Harry spent these days working hard to finish all of his summer homework so that he could spend the rest of the holidays relaxing. He also made sure to investigate a little into what was awaiting him during his fifth year and, especially, in the OWLs exams. Sure, he had already taken his Muggle Studies one, but that test was not in the same league with the others, especially the career-defining ones like Charms, Transfiguration and Potions.
And speaking of the Muggle Studies exam, it was almost time for the Ministry's Wizarding Examinations Authority to finally tell him how he did there. Indeed, early in the morning of July, 18 the long-awaited owl finally arrived.
After reading through a paragraph explaining the grading system, and another, longer one, detailing how having one of the tests taken a year early would affect the rest of his OWLs at the end of the upcoming academic year, Harry finally got to the single line with the results of his exam. It read:
Muggle Studies: Outstanding (O-)
He managed to pass the exam, and with the grade that he could be satisfied with. Even if he'd rather it was a proper 'Outstanding' rather than just O-minus. Still, this was a good result, and one that should keep Professor Burbage happy.
And if he got his results, Flora and Hestia must've gotten theirs as well. Curious about how well his girlfriends did in the exam, Harry sent them a letter, asking exactly that. As well as telling them about his own grade.
Apparently, the twins had had a similar idea upon receiving their own test results. Indeed, the next morning the green-eyed teen received an owl from them - one that wasn't a reply to his own letter. According to that, they both did pretty well on the exam with Hestia managing to scrape together an O- while Flora only got EE. Both were good results, and from the writing Harry got the impression that the girls were quite happy with the grades they got. Even if Flora might be a tiny little bit jealous of her sister's luck.
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Sirius Black let out a tired sigh and lowered Muggle binoculars he had …procured from one of the thrift shops he had visited in his animagus disguise. The said binoculars were the only way for him to actually see anything happening around the Bones manor. And even for that he had to climb up an old pine tree and perch dangerously on one of its upper branches.
Unfortunately, it looked like his godson wasn't living with the Bones. Unless, of course, he was that blonde pigtailed girl that hung around little - well, not so little anymore - Susan. But the Azkaban escapee doubted it was the case.
And while he had great trouble getting anywhere close to the Bones manor, the one owned by Longbottoms had been completely impossible to approach unless invited. Which Sirius most definitely wasn't. And, thus, had absolutely no way of confirming whether Harry was spending his summers there or not. But he hoped he did: Longbottoms had been long-time allies of Potters and with the impressive wards protecting the manor, Harry would be safe from external threats there.
Hopes alone weren't good enough, though. That was the harsh lesson life had taught him. And so Sirius wanted to be sure that his godson was safe and happy with the (presumably) Longbottoms. Which was a nigh-impossible task for him because of the aforementioned wards he so hoped were protecting Harry. So what could he do?
He had thought about going to Diagon Alley - as Padfoot, of course - and hopefully see Harry there, healthy and happy in the company of… uh, what was Alice's and Frank's son's name? Neville? Yeah, that sounded about right. Alas, a big, mangy and obviously-hungry ownerless dog wasn't welcome in Diagon Alley itself and trying to spy from less savory parts of the Magical shopping district might be a risk if some drunkard decided he was a Grim and tried to chop him up for Potion ingredients or something.
That left him with but a single option, and one that required a lot of patience on his part too: going to Platform 9¾ on September the first to see Harry as he boarded the Hogwarts Express. But September the first was a month and a half away…
Letting another sigh, Sirius put his binoculars away and began the slow and arduous track down the tree. It was getting late in the afternoon already and it didn't look like Harry would suddenly decide to pop up at the Bones manor today. Plus, he was getting hungry. Very hungry. He had actually run out of food yesterday when his makeshift traps failed to catch even a mouse for him to eat… Hopefully, today he'll have a bit more luck.
Yep, being a fugitive on the run wasn't easy, even when you had Magic and could transform into a dog at will.
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In a bit of a surprise for everyone in the Clique, letters from Hogwarts with the list of textbooks and other things they'll need for the upcoming academic year arrived almost two weeks earlier than expected. And, quite curiously, dress robes - the kind one would wear for a ball or another high-profile social event - were on that list.
This immediately made Harry think back to his last conversation with Lord Malfoy. The man did tell him that there would be some big event taking place at Hogwarts soon, and whatever that event was, the dress robes were definitely needed because of it.
It didn't really help narrowing down the nature of that event, though. Especially if it was going to be something entirely new and not an attempt to revive the Triwizard Tournament or something like that.
And unlike his friends, Harry received a second letter. It came with a greenish shield-shaped badge that had a large silver 'P' on it. Accompanying this badge was a note from Professor Snape. His Head of the House - in his usual terse and surly way - congratulated him on being chosen as Slytherin prefect and listed his new responsibilities and privileges with the final note saying that he was required to attend the prefect meeting on the Hogwarts Express, where the Head Boy and the Head Girl will give him a more detailed rundown of his duties and assign him his first patrolling schedule. Somewhere in-between there was a warning that he should abuse the power entrusted to him.
His friends, of course, congratulated him on becoming a prefect, and they also shared his surprise that neither Flora nor Hestia were given the badge as well. After some debates, the Clique has reached the consensus that the teachers probably didn't want the twins swapping the badge between them, and making them both Prefects wasn't an option. At least, none of them could find any mentions of the school ever having more than one boy and one girl prefect per House per year in 'Hogwarts: a History'.
Back to the 'main' letter, the one that everyone got. The teens examined the list of textbooks they'd need for the next academic year and quickly noticed two things.
The first being that they will be focusing a lot on the Dark creatures - the ones you could actually run into on British Isles - and the ways to defend oneself against them in DADA this year. But not to the exclusion of learning defense against what other Magicals could do. Hence their list had two different textbooks listed for the subject.
The other thing the teens could surmise from their textbooks list was that they were likely getting a new Potions Master. Indeed, while he did sometimes switch to newer editions whenever those came out, Professor Snape always taught using the same textbook year after year. So seeing something different on the list was quite surprising.
Perhaps, their Head of the House finally got his wish and was given the position of the DADA Professor he longed for? But if so, who was going to be teaching Potions in his stead? At the moment, the Clique had no answers to those questions. At least at the moment.
They would get their answers later, after the Board of Governors' meeting in mid-August. For now though, the teens busied themselves with planning out their shopping trip to Diagon Alley. Finding a day that worked for everyone was surprisingly easy. Making sure their resident Quidditch fanatics remembered that they were shopping for textbooks and everything else they needed for school, rather than for Quidditch memorabilia, might be another thing.
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Even though he'll probably be told most things he needed to know about being a prefect at that meeting of prefects on the Hogwarts Express that he was required to attend, Harry still wanted to know about what exactly having the badge entailed and what he needed to do in order to be a good prefect. Thus, he sent an owl to Gemma Farley - a Slytherin prefect from his first year at Hogwarts - with some of his questions.
He had to wait for a few days, but eventually Gemma did reply to his letter. The older witch patiently answered his questions and also described her own experiences as a prefect, especially the mistakes she had made back when she first put on the badge.
And while Professor Snape's note already made it clear to Harry that being a prefect was far from an easy, glamorous 'job' some imagined it to be, Gemma's letter really made that abundantly clear. Indeed, Hogwarts prefects had many and varied responsibilities with only access to a special bathroom and an exemption from curfew (even when not on patrol duty) to balance it out.
Indeed, in addition to patrolling the school's corridors two or three nights a week, prefects were also supposed to be available to help other students - academically or with personal issues - at any time. They were also responsible for maintaining discipline and ensuring safety of other students, and not just from their own House. Additionally, during the first couple of weeks until the first years memorized the layout of the castle, the prefects could be asked to guide them around. Plus, the prefects were supposed to be exemplary students themselves and failing to keep their grades up could see one losing their badge even if they were performing their other duties adequately.
All in all, it looked like the prefect's badge was far from the blessing some believed it to be. Still, that didn't mean that Harry wasn't going to do his best in this new role given to him.
This made him think back to his own experiences as a first year student. And not all of his issues during the first few days at Hogwarts were because Slytherin had yet to warm up to him. The prefects did a decent job on showing the key locations around the castle, but they only did that once and…
Could he do better? He definitely should try, but… Escorting the first years around all the time wasn't really an option as he had his own classes to attend. On time. So what were his options? A map of Hogwarts with the key locations marked that he could distribute around sounded great, but he wasn't sure he could actually make one, especially while not at the castle - which, one needs to remember, had moving staircases and other non-static bits of architecture.
Well, he had heard the rumors that the Weasley twins had a Magical, self-updating map of the castle in their possession, but… Those two were pranksters. And very Gryffindor. And he was a Slytherin, although 'better than the usual snake'. Did he really trust them to deliver exactly what he asked them for, without sneaking in some surprise? Probably not, Harry decided. Still, if he found himself without any other options, he might ask the prankster duo for help.
For now he should try to think up something on his own. Or, at least, with the help of the people he could trust not to deceive or prank him - and the future first years under his care by extension.
It didn't occur to Harry, at the time, that he could actually ask his friends for help, both with his map idea and with other ideas on what he could do to help the first years adapt to life at Hogwarts easier.
That's all, folks!
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