Remus was quiet and seemed deep in thought as he led them up to the Gryffindor common room. Harry was surprised when rather than giving The Fat Lady a password, he simply greeted her politely and exchanged a few words with her before she wished them all a good day and opened the passageway for them.

Once they were all inside, Remus answered their questioning looks, "All staff is permitted into any common room regardless of passwords for safety reasons, and, although I am not a teacher, I am still a staff member." He smiled as he led their things over to the stairs. "Now, I would love to stay and visit with you Harry, but I really should go and fire-call Ron's parents so that they don't worry. And then, I'm afraid I still have to do quite a few things to help Madame Pomfrey ready the Hospital Wing for the start of term."

Before Harry could feel truly disappointed at the fact that his newfound godfather had more important things to do than to spend time with him, Remus continued in a mildly nervous tone. "Although, I wonder if you would be kind enough to set aside some time for me on Saturday? I'm aware you'll be very busy during your first week back and that most students prefer to use their weekends for relaxing or studying, but I had hoped that maybe we could have dinner together at least once a week or so. I understand if you'd rather do-"

"No!" Harry burst in. After reviewing how that sounded he corrected himself. " No, I mean, yes. I mean. Of course. I'd love to eat dinner with you on Saturday. Once a week sounds great." Harry ignored the sound of Ron trying and failing to smother his laughter behind his fist. Thankfully, Remus didn't seem to care about how awkward Harry was, and instead just seemed relieved.

He smiled and rested a hand on Harry's shoulder. After a moment, he seemed to remember himself, and cleared his throat, squeezing Harry's shoulder once before dropping his hand back to his side. "Alright then. I guess I'll go make that call. You two try and stay in Gryffindor Tower until time for the feast. The staff will be busy doing last minute preparations until the rest of the students get here, so it would be best not to be underfoot. Although, I'll be in the Hospital Wing until the feast. Come straight there and find me if you need something."

Harry and Ron waited until Remus had left through the portrait to drag their belongings up the stairs to the second-year boys dormitory. The room was laid out in a circle, the same as the room they'd had for their first year, so they each picked the beds which best corresponded to the ones they'd had the year before.

"So, it seems like your Godfather is pretty nice." Ron said as he tried and failed to coax Scabbers out of his trunk so that he could close it properly. It seemed the poor rat had been scarred for life from their use of the portkey. "Do you think you should tell him about what Dobby said?"

Harry sighed and shrugged. "He is nice. I could try, but I'm not sure if he'd believe me or not. I mean, it does seem a bit… well… we've only just met. I wouldn't want him to think I'm a liar." He tossed some robes onto his bed. He would have to put them on instead of the muggle clothing he'd worn to the train station before the feast, but it felt too early to get changed just yet. Ron had apparently given up on getting Scabbers to come out and had instead decided to leave the trunk open at the end of his bed. He guessed the rat would emerge eventually once he got hungry enough. Harry set Hedwig's cage down on his nightstand. She was asleep, so he decided to wait until later to take her to the owlery.

Ron gathered his chess board and his Exploding Snap cards and headed back to the stairs for the common room. "I don't know, mate. I mean, he believed you about the platform. He didn't even try to suggest that maybe we were just late or something. And from the look on his face he even seemed concerned about it, so I don't think he was just humouring us like my dad does with Ginny sometimes when he thinks she's fibbing."

Harry nodded as he followed Ron. "I don't know, Ron. I guess I could try." He conceded quietly. Besides, if Remus thought he was lying Harry could always just pretend he was only joking and hadn't really been expecting Remus to believe him. Mr. Weasley had told Harry that Remus was the kind of guy who liked a good joke when he'd overheard Harry mentioning to Ron that he was nervous about meeting the man a few weeks back.

Harry and Ron spent the next few hours playing games in the common room and discussing what Hermione and the others had likely thought about them missing the train. It wasn't a complete rarity for the Gryffindor common room to be near empty, so eventually, as their conversation turned to other things, the boys forgot they were alone.

Finally, after about 12 rounds of Exploding Snap, Ron persuaded Harry to a few games of wizard's chess. All of which, of course, Harry lost. He had just begun to think that possibly this round would be the one where he finally won when something out the window caught his eye.

Night had fallen as they had played, and Harry could now see carriages with lit lanterns were fast approaching the castle from the grounds. In fact it seemed that most of them had already arrived, as there were only a few stragglers left. Oh no. "Damn! Ron, we're late for the feast!" Harry pointed out, rushing towards the portrait. Ron quickly followed him, abandoning his chess set on the table.

Thankfully, just before they managed to exit and ended up affectively trapped outside of the Tower as they'd yet to learn the password, Harry glanced at Ron and realized they'd both neglected to change into their uniforms.

After a mad dash back up to the dorm to throw on their robes, Harry and Ron set off running down the stairs hoping to reach the Great Hall before their classmates had all entered and the doors had closed. Unfortunately, they were in such a rush that midway down the second to last staircase Ron tripped and rolled all the way down to the next landing.

"Ron!" Harry rushed down to him as carefully as he could. It wouldn't do for him to fall too and land on top of his possibly injured friend.

"Bloody Hell, Harry. That was close. I thought I was-" Ron cut himself off as Harry helped him to his feet. His eyes widened and his face drained of colour as he patted himself down.

The castle wards had, thankfully, prevented him from breaking any important body parts. His wand, however, hadn't been so lucky.

"My wand. Harry. Look at my wand!" Ron whimpered in shock pulling it out of his robe pocket. The tip of Ron's wand was snapped nearly clean through. The unicorn hair, which had always poked out the top a bit, now seemed to be the only thing left holding it together.

Harry felt a pang of sympathy for his friend. There was no way the Weasleys could afford to buy Ron a new one. "I'm sorry, Ron. Honestly though, I'm just grateful it's not your neck. That fall looked awful." Ron whimpered again in reply. He had the wand cradled gently in his hands as he stared at it mournfully. Harry gave him a few moments to process his loss and then nudged at his shoulder. "C'mon. Let's get down to dinner. We can ask Remus tomorrow if there's some way we can fix it."

Ron nodded timidly in agreement and allowed Harry to lead him down the next set of stairs with a hand on his elbow at a much slower pace. They were both so distracted by the broken wand that they forgot the reason they had been rushing in the first place.

Ron continued to stare down at his wand as Harry pushed open the doors to the Great Hall. It took only a second for Harry to realize their mistake. The tables were filled with students who all turned to stare at them at the sound of the heavy door creaking open. A hushed murmur erupted from the tables.

The sorting had already begun.

Only the Sorting Hat seemed unphased at their interruption, shouting out a loud HUFFLEPUFF from atop a first-year's head. The distraction of Harry and Ron entering the hall so late caused the poor boy to get only a smattering of automatic applauses from a few of the older students of his new house. He slid nervously off the stool and abandoned the hat to sit with them, all while staring with wide eyes at Harry's scar.

"How kind of you to join us Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley. You've both just earned your first detention of this term. Judging by your behaviour from last year, I'm quite sure it will not be your last." Professor McGonagall said tersely as she motioned for them to sit down.

Ginny Weasley flushed a deep scarlet colour from her spot in the sorting line. The boys quickly followed their professor's instructions and took a seat at the Gryffindor table across from Hermione and Neville.

Hermione shot them a severe look and waited until applause broke out for the next newly sorted student before she hissed "Where have you two been? I looked the train up and down! There were rumours you'd been expelled!"

"I'll tell you later. Obviously, we aren't expelled." Harry promised.

Ron laid his wand gently on the table and was only distracted enough to look away from it once the hat called out his sister's name. He brightened long enough to clap for Ginny when she was sorted into Gryffindor, but once she had made it to the table and sat down between Fred and George he went back to gazing at his wand mournfully.

"Oh no. Ron, what happened to your wand?" Hermione fretted as she finally noticed.

Ron let out a pitiful whimper in reply. Harry shared a look with Hermione and Neville before he filled them in on what had happened on their way down the stairs. Ron didn't even brighten when the sorting ended, and the food appeared. This was sure to be a long night.

Harry was disappointed to learn from Hermione during the feast that there was no true way to repair Ron's wand. They did the best they could later that evening to hold it together for the foreseeable future by wrapping it in spellotape, but they both knew it likely wouldn't last for long. Ron was putting off using the wand completely for fear that it would no longer work.

His brothers and Ginny had all been sympathetic enough when they found out, but they had also all agreed that there was no way their parents would be able to buy Ron a new one during this term. He would have to make do and wait until at least the following year to get a replacement.

Harry wanted to offer to give Ron the money for a new wand, but he knew better. Ron could be a bit funny when it came to things like that, and Harry understood that it was better for their friendship if he didn't try to swoop in with his parent's fortune quite yet. Hopefully, if things got too bad, Ron would be more accepting of Harry's help later once the broken wand had become more of an inconvenience.

Harry and Ron skipped breakfast the next morning to visit the Hospital Wing before classes and consult Remus about it, but he could sadly only offer confirmation of what Hermione had already told them. There was no known way to repair a wand so badly broken as Ron's was, and he would definitely need a new one.

Harry did notice, thankfully, that during their short discussion Remus kept the conversation on Ron's wand and didn't take the occasion to reprimand Harry about the detention he had earned during the welcome feast, so hopefully he wasn't too disappointed in him about that. Still, as they didn't want to chance it, they left out the truth of how Ron had actually managed to break his wand in the first place. He didn't want Remus to think they were irresponsible on top of being rudely tardy.

The only time Remus even touched on the fact that they had been late to dinner the night before was when he summoned them some muffins with a flick of his wand and told them with a pointed look to eat them carefully on their way to class so that they could still arrive on time.

Luckily, the first day of term seldom called for much spell work, so Ron had made it until Transfiguration, their second class, before he had had to attempt to cast with it.

All in all, it could have been worse.

Really, Harry couldn't successfully transform the beetle into a button either and his wand was functioning perfectly. Hopefully, Ron would just need a few days to get used to the adjustment.

A/N: I've finally returned. It's been a busy few weeks for me. For any readers wondering, my little Dachshund dog Magrathea is doing very well. Thank you to anyone who left kind words in the comments, they really brightened my day and helped to reassure me.

She seemed to be mostly healed after the first 10 days, but was emotionally hurt and betrayed that I had allowed the mean doctor man to cut off and steal her nipples for around twice that time at least. She was even more offended when I took her back to him two weeks later and he then stole the stitches he had replaced her nipples with.

She was very sedated for a while as the Vet didn't want her moving around too much, so she wasn't very aware of much at first, but towards the end of her recovery she seemed to realize how concerned I was about her and began subtly manipulating me.

She knew she was hurt and she knew I was upset about it, so any time I even so much as moved her blanket or fiddled with her collar she would yelp and squawk as if she had been killed in order to make me feel guilty enough to slip her a treat. She had me very well trained before my mother noticed what she was doing and pointed it out.

The understanding that she was manipulating me didn't stop the guilt, or the treats, but it was interesting to realize how smart my old girl still is. Thankfully, her favorite treat has always been carrots, so she hasn't yet grown to the size of my house.

She finally deemed me forgiven enough to write some this week, so you can all thank her for this chapter.