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Chapter 17
As January drew to a close, everyone at the patronus meetings was doing quite well. They had progressed from summoning just mists to starting to try and form vague shapes. Everyone except Ginny, that is, who was still unable to call forth even the most basic of mist. Harry was doing everything he could trying to help her, their lessons had practically turned into Harry giving the depressed girl one on one teaching while Hermione taught everyone else, but it didn't seem to be helping.
Harry spent most of his evenings once he was done with homework working on his Runes side projects. The magical fax machine was a bust, he had reached a hard limit on how long a copy would last. After forty nine minutes, the magical copies would just fade away into nothing, which was fine if you were right next to the receiver to accept and read the message. However, if you stepped out for an hour-long lunch break, there was no way to tell if you had just missed an incoming memo and it had vanquished before you returned, and that made it impractical. He wrote up a report about what he had done and why he had abandoned it and handed it to Professor Babbling, who had accepted it and had actually given Harry an Acceptable. Apparently his ideas were good and his rune work was good, so he got a lot of marks just for that.
He was still working on his quick drying doorway, and had managed to improve it even more. He had put a peach and an orange through his latest test, and while the skin of the peach and the coloured part of the orange skin had become dry and brittle, the flesh under the skin was perfectly normal. It wasn't ready for upscale, or testing on a conjured animal (Harry wasn't willing to test on real animals until he was positive it was safe), but he was definitely getting close. A few of the Gryffindor girls learned what he was working on and practically begged Harry to install one in each of the Gryffindor girls shower rooms when he was finished with the design. Apparently, it would save the girls a lot of time getting ready.
Harry knew from Hermione that the girls' stairs were warded so boys couldn't go up them, but there had to be a way around out it as there had to have been male heads of Gryffindor House (like Flitwick in Ravenclaw and Snape in Slytherin) and male healers who worked in the school over the years, and there was no way they weren't allowed up those stairs. So in the end, Harry's answer was simple. "You will need to get Professors Babbling and McGonagall to agree to it. Without that, there is no way I could do it." The girls had accepted that, and Harry was sure that if it was approved he would have Professor Babbling with him the whole time monitoring his behaviour.
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A few days before the next full moon, Harry got a letter from the Ministry saying he was being given a chance to say goodbye to his uncle. While the appeal was on, his aunt and uncle wouldn't be executed, but it was unlikely his unhealthy walrus of an uncle would survive another transformation. Vernon was apparently asking to see him, and Harry was of two minds on the subject. One part of him wanted to ignore the letter and let his uncle just disappear. The other part wanted to go and tell Vernon what a rotten piece of shit he was. He may have been a little conflicted about Dudley, who was basically raised to hate Harry. His uncle, however, Harry didn't have any doubts about. That man could rot in hell and the only emotion Harry would feel would be a sense of justice.
He slid down the breakfast table to Hermione, who was chatting with Kathryn, and showed her the letter. Kathryn saw the heading of the letter was from the Department of Control of Magical Creatures and gave Harry a questioning look asking what was going on. A lot of the lycanthropy students had heard about what had happened over the holidays, that Harry's aunt and uncle had been turned and were now in the custody of the ministry. Apparently the lycanthropy community had a network for passing information around, they knew before they had even returned to Hogwarts.
There had been some shock among the lycanthropy students that Harry wasn't supporting his aunt and uncle. He had shown many times that he had no problem with werewolves, and the idea that he would abandon family members who had been cursed had surprised them. It was only after Kathryn had talked to Hermione and Hermione explained that he had cut off ties with his aunt and uncle long before they were infected that the werewolf students understood, Harry refusing to throw his weight around for his relatives had nothing to do with their curse and everything to do with who they are as people.
Hermione, knowing that Harry wouldn't mind, told Kathryn about what was in the letter as she read it, then asked him if he was going to go. "Probably not. My first reaction with Dudley was to stay away, but I let others persuade me into giving him a chance. I don't intend on making the same mistake again," Harry said. "But maybe I haven't fully made up my mind yet."
Hermione gave Harry a quick hug and a peck on the cheek as she handed back the letter, then said. "Now shoo, this is girl talk," smiling the entire time. Harry, who had two betrotheds, was more than familiar with girl talk from their regular three way mirror conversations and wisely decided that he would take the offered opportunity to retreat.
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Harry was sitting in the headmistress's office as he tried to meditate a little more on his animagus form. He was so deep in thought that, when a large cat climbed into his lap and started demanding attention from him, Harry just let his hands unconsciously do for this cat what they were used to doing for Crookshanks. His fingers unconsciously sought out the cat's ears and started to rub behind them in the way that most cats loved. Soon, the cat was a living puddle of purring in his lap and Harry continued with his medication.
It wasn't until there was a flash of a camera that Harry started paying attention to the world around him, and he looked around to see a smirking Professor McGonagall. Harry made a few wordless vocalisations of confusion, only to have the professor smile and say, "Well I think it's fitting to catch my student's first full self transformation in a photo."
It took Harry's mind a few seconds to realise what the headmistress was talking about, then he realised that he had a cat in his lap and made the connection of who that cat was.
"Hermione?" Harry asked, the pride in his girlfriend's accomplishment evident in his voice.
The cat responded by licking Harry's hand, then pressed her entire head into Harry's palm. Harry took the hint and continued to pet his girlfriend. Their professor smiled knowingly at the pair of them, and Harry couldn't help but grin back as he realised this strict tight laced professor had probably been in Hermione's exact situation more than a few times in her life,, when she had someone she felt comfortable letting her hair down with.
After a few minutes Professor McGonagall, still smiling with pride at Hermione's accomplishment, said. "Miss Granger, as much as I can see you enjoying the attention, can you try to transform back please? I need to see if you can do it without trouble."
Hermione jumped out of Harry's lap, and after a quick shimmer she was back in her regular form with a happy smile on her face. "Yes! Yes! Yes! I did it." Hermione was bouncing up and down in excitement and she pulled Harry into a hug. Professor McGonagall did rain on the celebrations a little when she pointed out that Hermione's blouse was on inside out, and she had Hermione practice changing back and forth multiple times, having Hermione get faster at the change every time.
Harry did ask Hermione if she had any advice for him on his own transformation but she could only say, "It's difficult to put into words, but I had to be the cat, if that makes any sense. Or more like, let the cat in me out? Do you get it?"
Harry shook his head, it was basically what Professor McGonagall had told them as well. His only guess was that it was something that made perfect sense in hindsight but right now was just annoyingly vague. So he did the only thing that he could do, he went back to his practice while Hermione worked on transforming herself faster.
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Despite everything going on outside the castle, Harry had never felt better within the castle. There were no rampaging monsters stalking the hallways, their Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher only seemed to care about Harry as a student skilled in the class he was teaching, and there were the improvements in Potions and History of Magic. Snape was never going to be a popular teacher, but now that Professor McGonagall was watching over him and was ready to correct any unprofessional behaviour, he was beginning to act more like a normal strict teacher than a bullying git.
Professor Lupin was a massive hit with almost all the students. Even those who held disfavorable views against him due to his curse would admit that he was a far more engaging professor than Binns had been. Harry and Hermione would even spend the odd evening with the professor enjoying a cup of tea, though as soon as they sat down and the tea was served he was Uncle Moony again instead of Professor Lupin. There was a misunderstanding at one point with Harry calling him Moony where one of the lycanthropes overheard. The Hufflepuff student had taken offence to the "derogatory name", but that had been quickly cleared up by the professor, who explained a little about his three friends at school and the absolutely terrible nicknames they had for each other, and that Moony was a name specifically for him but not lycanthropy sufferers in general.
However, all of this wasn't to say that Hogwarts under Headmistress McGonagall was perfect and without fault. One big source of stress for Harry, Hermione, and every other fifth year was their upcoming O.W.L.s. Every teacher was reminding them that a third of the school year was gone and they only had until Easter to cover all the new material they needed to go through before they switched to doing revision lessons.
The other shadow over them in the castle was Umbridge, who was continuing her crusade against the lycanthropy students. Despite the details, the fact that there were two werewolves in Hogsmeade during the Christmas holidays seemed to have set off some form of evangelical zeal in the vaguely woman-like toad.
As bad as it was before the holidays, the school inspector now seemed to be staying in the corridors between classes, almost hunting the lycanthropy-cursed and the first generation students. Any little thing that could be interpreted as a breaking of the rules had graduated from points losses to detentions. And it wasn't uncommon for the students in detention to be given another while in detention, with no witnesses.
She wasn't content with going after the students, though, there were now four teachers who had been issued improvement notices: Professors Lupin, Flitwick, Hagrid, and Trelawney. Harry wasn't too concerned about Trelawney, as after her classes Neville would often come out looking like someone had been kicking his puppy. The constant predictions of death that she was still helping on Harry's friend had robbed him of all sympathy for the woman. Plus, a lot of the students who took Divination complained that Trelawney was nothing but a drunken over-acting fraud, Harry couldn't exactly blame Umbridge for that one. The problem was, Daphne and Tracey thought sacking Trelawney was a Slytherin plan. People would pay attention to the first person sacked by the Ministry. If it was a fair dismissal, Umbridge would have the benefit of the doubt when she sacked Hagrid and Lupin. Harry could easily see that happening.
Umbridge had also taken to calling Hermione and the lycanthropy students half breeds openly. Harry had sent Amelia Bones a letter pointing out that Umbridge was using the same phrase that was on the slip that had come out of the Goblet of Fire. Unfortunately, the letter he got back didn't fill him with hope. Umbridge was well known for using the word half breed as a slur among people who worked at the Ministry. As such, anyone could have used the phrase on the parchment to come out of the Goblet to throw suspicion on her. Umbridge was also high enough in the Ministry that investigating her was difficult. Basically, he was on his own.
Harry was worried, he knew it was only a matter of time before Umbridge targeted Hermione again. While Harry was able to protect her last time, he was sure that the next time Umbridge targeted Hermione, she would have a solution to Harry's posturing and readiness to go to the press.
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Harry and Hermione were on the werewolf escort this full moon. It was an easy enough job to walk down to the gates with the students who were leaving for the night and check their names off a list as they left through the front gate. Tonight the werewolf teens were particularly miserable, as it was late January and the weather reflected that. Not only were they about to undergo a particularly painful transformation, they were also going to spend all night out in the cold. Harry and Hermione did their best to introduce some levity to the situation, trying to cheer up the pack of morose teenagers, and while a few of them nodded in thanks most of them were just too annoyed to be open to being cheered up.
Professor Lupin was carrying a large hula hoop portkey that was going to take them to and from the warded island that was quite a way west of the castle and out in the Hebrides, where the school kept a few dragons centuries ago when there was a class on learning about them. The school had had a few Hebridean Blacks, a species of dragon that preferred to live on the islands around Scotland. Now, though, the island was empty, and the only thing that was left (according to Lupin and Kathryn) was a few buildings that they used to shelter in from the bad weather. The portkey was provided by the Ministry so that they could monitor it, which was why they had to go down to the gate. It would have been easier for Professor McGonagall to make the portkey, if only so that the lycanthropes could leave and return to the castle from the entry hall, but somewhere some member of the ministry decided that they needed to justify their salary.
The recent rain made the walk more difficult, and Harry, Hermione, and a few of the older students were all casting the Duro charm on the muddy ground as they went, making the soft slippery ground as hard as stone for a few minutes to let them walk over it easier. Unfortunately, they had to stop before they opened the gate, as on the other side of it was a mob of wizards all waiting for the lycanthropy sufferers to step out of the gate.
All of the werewolves, including Moony, were understandably a little panicked over being confronted by an angry mob, so Harry took charge of the situation. He and Hermione started herding them to another way out of the school via the tunnel under the Whomping Willow. It took a few minutes for Professor Lupin to clear his head and understand what was going on, but once he did he agreed completely with Harry's plan. It was the best way to safely get the students, who were only hours away from their transformation, out of the school quickly. Harry's other plan was to take them back up to the castle, Floo them all to his Hogsmeade house, and have them portkey from the street outside his house, but twenty five pinches of Floo powder wouldn't be cheap.
As they walked towards the willow that Neville had spent most of his free time last year studying, as Harry was too busy from the tournament to help out, Professor Lupin pulled out his wand and summoned his Patronus, a shining silver wolf. Harry was confused until the professor turned to the wolf and said. "Message for Headmistress McGonagall. Headmistress, there is a mob outside the front gates waiting for my students to step out of Hogwarts wards. Potter, Granger, and I are taking through my old back door to the school. Will give you a full report when I return tomorrow." Once he finished, the Patronus wolf turned and ran towards the castle and then vanished in a puff of mist.
Harry looked at Lupin, the question obvious on his face. "It's a messenger Patronus, it will already be delivering the message to the headmistress," Lupin explained.
"You are SO going to have to teach me how to do that." Harry grinned at his honorary uncle.
The trek to the Whomping Willow didn't take too long as it was on the same side of the castle as the gate, which was probably because both the road and the tunnel led straight to Hogsmeade. Hermione shifted to her wildcat form and went to push the knot on the tree that made it freeze, surprising Lupin who hadn't been told yet that Hermione had finished her animagus training yet.
"All right, everyone in, one at a time," Lupin said as pointed out the opening hidden between the roots with a simple Notice-Me-Not ward. "Once in, you will find a tunnel that you need to start walking down. There is a low ceiling, so those of you who are on the taller side will need to watch your heads. Harry, you go first as you know the way."
Harry nodded and slipped into the hole. The last time he had been in here he had been able to stand up straight, but now he had to duck his head. He lit his wand with the Lumos charm, and when Kathryn slid down next he started to lead the other students through the tunnel. He was reminded of the last time he was in this tunnel, when he and Neville were desperately trying to catch up to LeStrange who had kidnapped Hermione.
"What is this tunnel?" One of the werewolves a few behind Harry asked.
"It was actually put here so that Professor Lupin could sneak out of the castle for the full moon back when he was a student here. I found out about the tunnel in my third year when LeStrange used it to kidnap Hermione," Harry explained and everyone grew quiet. LeStrange was almost as much a bogeyman as Voldemort, and the idea that she had actually managed to kidnap Hermione, someone they all knew and had at least come to somewhat respect as a fair prefect even if they didn't like her on a personal level, was disturbing.
After a few minutes, Hermione came up the tunnel in her wildcat form, weaving in and out of everyone's legs. Once she was up front, she shifted back into her human form and, after giving Harry a quick greeting, said, "Professor Lupin is following behind everyone. How are you doing?" Hermione's last question was asked in such a way that told him she wasn't doing great either.
"Remembering my last mad dash through this tunnel trying to catch up to and save you," Harry admitted. "You?"
"I'm having flashes of being in full body bind floating behind the bitch as she cackles to herself and gloats about how you'll go to her now," Hermione admitted.
"Well it's over now and we escaped," Harry tried to reassure her, but it sounded hollow even to him. The truth was that LeStrange was still out there, and if she ever had the opportunity she would try to kill them again.
About half an hour later they emerged in the Shrieking Shack. They had pushed it to get here so quickly, as even though they had plenty of time before moon rise (the rule of them being off the grounds two hours before moonrise being specifically designed so that if anything went wrong they had two hours in which to sort it out), they didn't want to waste time then find out that they had to turn back for some reason. Professor Lupin soon had all the werewolves stand in a circle and take hold of the portkey. They had tried in the tunnel once they were past Hogwarts wards, but it was just two cramped for twenty five students to grab ahold of a magically resized hula hoop. Maybe it would have worked had the portkey been a length of rope like the international portkeys, but this way they had to travel the whole way to the shack to have enough room.
Harry and Hermione checked the names off of the list they had of lycanthropes at the school and confirmed that they were all here and that no-one had been left behind. Just before he activated the portkey, Professor Lupin turned to Harry and Hermione and said, "Good work you two, now get back to the castle as quickly as you can and tell Headmistress McGonagall what has happened. Tell her I will give her a full report when I return in the morning. Oh, and before I forget, thirty points to Gryffindor for finding an excellent solution so quickly." He smiled at them then said the phrase to activate the portkey, and he and all of the werewolf students vanished, leaving the room suddenly feeling very empty.
Harry and Hermione didn't really want to go back through the tunnel, so Harry decided to take Lupin's instruction to get back to the castle "as quickly as they could" as literally as he possibly could. After taking Hermione's hand, he Stepped them both directly to the door outside of the headmistress's office. Hermione knocked, and after a start of surprise from inside the room that confirmed Hermione's suspicion that the gargoyle that guarded the way to the Head's Office also informed the Head that someone was coming, the headmistress called out for them to come in.
Understandably, the headmistress was a little agitated from the message she had from Professor Lupin, and when Harry and Hermione told her that they were the prefects that had escorted the lycanthropy sufferers this full moon, she demanded that they tell her everything that had happened. They spent so long going into all the details that the headmistress wanted that moonrise arrived, and a few minutes later they were interrupted by a small gargoyle statue that they hadn't noticed before telling the headmistress that someone was coming up to her office. Less than a minute later there was a knock on the door, and then the door was opened before the headmistress could invite whoever it was in. In strode the pink-clad toad woman.
"Headmistress, I'm afraid to tell you that none of the abominations have left the school, despite it now being after moonrise. This is proof that, as I have been saying, it's far too dangerous to have those beasts around a school. The rules were clear, no werewolf was to be on or around the grounds of Hogwarts during a full moon. You will find here all the parchment work ready for their dismissal." She triumphantly slapped down the stack of parchment on the headmistress's desk.
In Harry's head the dots started to connect, and he didn't like the conclusions he was getting. From the looks on both Hermione's and headmistress McGonagall's faces he wasn't the only one who was arriving at the same conclusion.
Professor McGonagall picked up the stairs of forms and flicked through them. "Tell me Dolores. How did you hear that the students cursed with lycanthropy hadn't left the school? And how is it that, despite it being only five minutes after moonrise and it being a three minute walk from your office to mine, you already have all this parchment work already filled out?"
"As the school inspector, it's well within my rights to have the front gate of the school watched to determine whether dangerous elements of the student body are following the rules set in place to protect the futures of our society. And I am a senior administrator of the ministry, having parchment work ready in a timely manner is a necessary skill to cultivate." Umbridge sounded incredibly smug as she spoke.
"Well it matters little. There will be no expulsions today," Professor McGonagall started to explain, only for Umbridge to cut her off.
"I think you don't understand me dear. There are wild monsters roaming about your school in violation of the agreement you reached with the Ministry. The punishment for this is that they are to be expelled, and their wands snapped. Now sign the forms." She tried to look intimidating as she said this.
The headmistress, however, was not so easily intimidated. Instead, she just looked at the school inspector in a way that made the two teens think that she was picturing herself wiping the floor with Umbridge. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, there is more than one way to leave Hogwarts."
The toad cut her off again. "True enough, but the Floo network is down for maintenance this evening and you are the only person who can make a Portkey that can leave from within the wards. And I know for a fact that none of the abominations returned to the castle, so they couldn't have gotten a Portkey from you. Ergo, they are on the grounds and in violation of the restrictions on them while they attended this school."
"You know, Dolores, it is rather uncouth for you to keep interrupting me like this. You really should try listening. Mr. Potter and Miss Granger here were the prefects checking out the lycanthropy sufferers this month. They were just reporting to me that they saw all of the lycanthropy sufferers off the grounds and portkeyed away. So it seems like my students are in compliance with the imposed guidelines, as such there is no need for you or your stack of forms," The headmistress said in a tone that clearly also said 'now get out of my office.'
"But that's impossible. All the ways out of the castle were being monitored."
"Evidently not. This school is old and nobody knows all of her secrets," the headmistress said smugly.
Umbridge looked pissed off, then drew herself up to her rather unimpressive full height and said, "As the Ministry appointed school inspector, you are required to give me access to any part of the school accessible by students or staff. You will arrange for me to inspect this way out of the castle tomorrow."
Sick of what Umbridge was doing, Hermione snapped at her without thinking. "Why, so when you arrange your mob next month you can block that way as well, you disgusting toad?"
Harry and the headmistress were too stunned to say anything before Umbridge, who turned to Hermione and said, "That will be detention with me for a week, Miss Granger."
A/N
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