To Ride the Carousel Again

Chapter 16

No cleverly worded disclaimer. Find one in an earlier chapter.

A bit of Hermione, some Luna and some Ron, oh, my!

Gmail has been rejecting any alerts or PM's or reviews to my account since 10/10/2023.
I am attempting to fix and/or recover any missed messages.
Hopefully, any favorites, follows or reviews will be reacquired.

10/31/2023
Can anyone tell me how to get rid of The Child Porn Provider who is using the review section
to advertise his disgusting wares?
He's done this on 10/05 and now 10/27
And I'm beginning to suspect this is why Gmail doesn't like FFN alerts, etc sent to me

10/27/2023
This will be the last update until near Thanksgiving. We will be traveling south to avoid the northern winter. I do not write so well after a hard day's towing of our tiny house.

*/

Approx. 4,900 words

*/

When his new friend Luna settled onto the stool, and the hat covered her eyes, he had a grin on his face. He was not sure where she would go, but he would put some sickles on Ravenclaw.

Suddenly he came out of his thoughts and noticed that the people around him were getting restless. Looking, he realized Luna was in a long hat stall. Apparently, from the way she was shaking her head and gesturing with her hands, she was not agreeing with the Hat's choice of house.

A few seconds later, Harry could swear he heard the hat mutter tiredly, "As you wish."

"Gryffindor!"

/*

Harry reacted by flinching in his seat like he had been hit with a Stinging Hex.

"No, no, no, no, no! I know she wasn't a lion before! This isn't the same! What did I change by not taking the car? Oh, Merlin, maybe I should have had Dobby close the platform off again and we should have taken the car again!"

Being attuned to Harry as she was, Hermione noticed that Harry was winding up his nerves just as he had done after Professor McGonagall had stripped away a hundred and fifty points for being caught being out after curfew last year.

(As much as she admired the professor, she still believed that fifty points each had been excessive. And the penalty had led to the near ostracization of the trio by their fellow Gryffindors. Especially as no one had lost more than twenty points each for being out after curfew violations all year. Except them. The 'Why Them' had bothered her the rest of the school term and into the holiday.)

Doing something she felt was wrong, but needed, she whacked Harry on the shoulder. As he turned in startled amazement she said, "Luna said she wanted to be friends. Apparently, she meant really close friends."

Harry continued his gape-jawed look at his friend who had just done something he hated. Just then she looked over his shoulder and spoke again.

"Hello, Luna. Welcome to Gryffindor."

The blonde returned with, "I'm very happy to be sorted as a lion. I look forward to talking later. You'll have to excuse me. I should go sit with my new year mates."

A hopeful smile lit her face. "Maybe I'll find some more new friends."

With that, she spun around and moved to sit with the other just-sorted Gryffindor's.

Harry spent the rest of the sorting lost in his thoughts, applauding mechanically for each new sort.

The only name that pulled him out of his funk and put a short-lived smile on his face, was that of little Ginny Weasley having a squealing, bouncing reunion with Luna after the hat proclaimed her a Gryffindor.

He missed the few strange words spoken by Dumbledore before the food suddenly appeared on the tables accompanied by a few yelps of surprise by the new first-years.

Hermione was well into gathering food for her own plate when she once again saw that Harry was zoned out in his own world.

With a small grimace, she proceeded to load up his plate with what she knew were his favorite foods and then leaned in to whisper in his ear.

"It would be best if you started eating, Harry. You keep acting this strange, you will soon draw the scrutiny of Professor McGonagall or the Headmaster."

THAT got Harry's attention. Tongueripper, Mrs. Tonks, and Lupin had agreed that after tonight, Harry was Lord Potter, emancipated, and no longer needed a magical guardian. They had also agreed to keep everything a secret until thirty-one days had passed. The law was a Lunar month, but Harry was the one who privately told Tongueripper to 'leave no loopholes for Headmaster Bumblesnork, or the Chief Wizard of the Wizened-maggot or the Supreme Muggylump of the ICW to challenge my Lordship'. "Oh, and that idiot Fudge also."

He mechanically started filling his stomach with the array of wonderful food Hermione had dished for him. The more he ate, the better his attitude became. After all, The Bumbler had no reason to have one of his private talks with him this early in this, his second year. And he wouldn't see The Snivellus in more than passing until Friday's potion class.

"Hmmm. Maybe life is better than I think," he mused. "At least until Friday."

After the feast, Harry and Hermione walked back to Gryffindor Tower without Ron. Many pairs of eyes noted that the trio, was at the moment, a duo.

Everyone was tired and yawns punctuated much of the sluggish talk in the common room. Soon, Harry said goodnight to Hermione and headed up to his dorm room.

Nodding at Neville, he dragged his ratty old pajamas out of his battered old trunk. Harry then changed, brushed his teeth, and was preparing to roll into his canopied bed when from behind he came a voice he was starting to dislike.

"Oi, Potter! Why'd you let that muggleborn bint paralyze me on the train?"

Slowly turning around to give himself time to grab his rising temper with both hands, Harry looked at the red-faced angry redhead. He noted that Seamus and Dean were also giving him the stink eye.

"Alright, how can I keep this from going bad? Ron's hit 'unreasonable berk' way earlier than I remember. Of course, Hermione never called him out on being a pillock before fourth year either."

I'll try reason first. Then I'll kill him for calling Hermione a bint."

"How was I going to stop her when I couldn't even see her around you because you flopped your fat-arsed-self down right between us," Harry said as mildly as he could manage. "Without even asking if we could budge over because there wasn't enough room between me and Hermione, you just plopped that fat arse of yours down, shoving us sideways," he continued.

Past Ron's arm, Harry could see Seamus and Dean looking at each other as though this was news to them. Harry was willing to bet Ron's whiney story to them had been a lot different.

"A best mate would have left space for me. A best mate would've unfrozen me, then cursed her, and thrown her into some other compartment," was the angry rejoinder.

"Ya know, Weasley, I might have considered that, except you hit her hard enough to bruise her when you started screaming at our friend, Luna. How many points would you have lost, and detentions would you have been hit with if Madame Pomfrey found out how she had gotten that bruise?"

If possible, Ron looked even more mulish.

"And another thing Weasley, how do you think the Gryffindor girls, especially the older ones, ya know, the scary ones who know all kinds of nasty curses? How would they react if they found out you hit girls and don't even think to apologize for having done it? Hmmm?"

Weasley's red face rapidly turned ashen. Glancing around, he could see Dean and Seamus were looking uncomfortable, and Neville was sitting very still.

He found it was actually entertaining to watch the redhead shift from foot to foot while trying to think of what to do. Harry let the silence grow.

He broke it with, "When you decide to apologize to Miss Granger for behavior that I'm not sure Malfoy would have done, then we can talk about being mates again."

Harry then walked to right up in Ron's face. "If I ever hear you call Hermione a bint again, I will do something that will probably get me expelled. And if you think that doing that just to get me expelled would be worth it, I want you to think about what your face will permanently look like, and how much pain you'll be in because Madame Pomfrey can't fix you if I damage you enough to be expelled."

An older, more mature Harry watched as Ron's face again flushed red. He then turned his back, rolled into his bed and pulled the curtains closed. First, he did a protection/detection ward spell Lupin had taught him to wake him if someone tried to pull his curtains open.

He had given the cage containing the rat next to Ron's bed a quick disinterested looking over to make sure it was locked. He did not want Pettigrew to get free and disappear. He had plans for that rat shortly. He also used his three years of extra knowledge to silence his bed area against the unmuffled engine sound of Ron's snoring.

The next morning, Harry was the first in the dorm to finish his ablutions. He then carefully dressed in his older clothes and attire. He wanted Bumblefork to see that he was being properly tracked.

And after a ten-minute wait, Neville was ready and the two headed down the stairs to the common room. Among the thin group of early risers, they found Hermione sitting on the couch in front of the fire, reading her Herbology text. Next to her was Luna, reading her first-year Charms book.

"Good morning, Hermione, Luna," Harry said. "Ready to get some breakfast and our class schedules?"

"Yes, we are, Harry. But do you think we could do something first?" the bushy-haired girl said with a smile.

"Luna was telling me she wanted to go down to the Great Hall with us because they were so rushed by the prefects, she just doesn't think she can get to the Hall alone without getting lost."

"The other girls were complaining about the rush in the dorm last night," Luna piped up. "None of us know where we're going."

"Why don't we ask the prefects?" Harry said looking puzzled.

"The fifth-year prefects are Sampson and Waybridge. They're worse than Percy was last year," Hermione said the last in a quiet voice.

"So, what do you want to do?" Harry said glancing at Neville before returning his attention back to her.

"Gather 'em up and we three will take them to breakfast. Most of them should be awake and dressed by now. We'll give them ten minutes and then head down."

"You and Neville go roust out the boys, and Luna here is going to tell the girls that Harry Potter is going to take them down to breakfast," his best friend said with an evil smirk.

When Harry looked shocked at the way Hermione was playing with his fame, she merely turned her evil smirk up a couple of notches and cooed, "There's a price to be paid for keeping secrets from me, Potter."

Harry's glare just bounced off Hermione's look of "Revenge, Part One." Neville looked confused.

Luna dashed off to her dorm while Harry, and the bewildered Neville, recognizing Hermione was in one of her unstoppable force moods, went up and opened the First-Year boys' dorm door.

At the door movement, the boys who were dressing and talking about trying to get to breakfast turned to see who had opened the door.

Harry could see from their widening eyes some of the kids recognized him and sighed to himself. "Alright, you lot. I'm Harry and this is Neville. You've got ten minutes to be downstairs before we head for the Great Hall. If you don't want to miss breakfast and go hungry, I suggest you get a move on."

With that, Harry closed the door, and he and Neville went back down to the Common Room.

In less than ten minutes, eleven bright, shiny faces were all looking at the three second years. Their school uniform might be askew, and some of them were panting as though they had run a distance, but they were all there.

"Right, you lot, pay attention." Harry dug into his primary school rules for being on a trip. "Pick someone to buddy up with. Miss Lovegood, you're Miss Granger's buddy."

After a few seconds of confusion, everyone got sorted with a buddy, the muggleborn and muggle raised explaining the procedure to the magicals.

As Harry and Naville lead the two-by-two group, he explained in a carrying voice how to use certain pictures as markers to turn or climb a stairway. He showed them the false stairstep in the Grand Stairway that one's foot would sink into, and it would take a spell from an upper year or a staff member to make it let go.

The Gryffindor table was only about a quarter full when the group arrived. A knowing look from Hermione made Harry take note of the fact that the Firsties had not sat as a group at the table. Instead, they had arranged themselves around their guides plus Luna.

Food was scooped onto plates by hungry young growing children. Harry idly noted that the boys went for eggs and meats, girls went for cereal and fruit. With one exception.

Luna was using cut sausages as turrets and toast pieces as walls as she built a castle that seemed to enclose her eggs for the purpose of defending them. Harry reckoned she must have seen Ron at a table sometime.

Talk around the table was relatively quiet as hungry children were chewing and muggleborn's were being introduced to pumpkin juice.

Ginny had managed to sit next to Luna and was holding an animated one-way whisper conversation with the castle-constructing blonde. Some imp in Harry made him make eye contact with the little redhead and smile. She immediately quit talking, blushed beet red, and took a sudden intense interest in her food.

The blinding flash of a magical camera going off almost in Harry's face had him unthinkingly releasing his wand into his outstretched hand before his brain and memories caught up with his reflexes.

It was Colin Creevy of course. Just as last time around, he was taking 'candid' photographs of his idol, Harry.

The speed with which Harry's wand had appeared pointed right in the face of the instantly paralyzed firstie had the whole group freeze.

Realizing what had happened, Harry 'disappeared' his wand and pushing his spiked adrenaline down, managed to speak clearly and calmly to the overly enthusiastic photographer whose previous huge grin had become a frozen rictus on his face.

"Your name's Colin, isn't it? And your parents are non-magical?"

Getting a shaky nod, he continued speaking. "Colin, many of us wizards do not take surprise flashes of light well. It usually means someone has just cast a spell, possibly at us."

Seeing the incomprehension on the boy's face, Harry thought for a moment. "Colin, imagine you're in your hometown. And your camera as if it were a toy gun that when you pulled the trigger, instead of shooting bullets, it went BANG and a little flag popped out. How long would it be before someone, who thought you were shooting at them, became angry because you scared them, embarrassed them, so then they beat you up."

Colin's wide, yet shifty-eyed reaction had Harry thinking something like that had already happened at home before Hogwarts.

"So, make sure you ask before setting off that blinding flash. Otherwise, some muggleborn-hating idiot could use it as an excuse to practice some nasty spells on you."

With that admonition given, Harry thought maybe this year Colin wouldn't become a stalker, surprising him constantly.

It took five more minutes for Professor McGonagall to come over and hand out their class schedules. Neville had a smile as he was excited that a double Herbology class was their first class. A smiling Hermione was talking excitedly that their third period class was transfiguration. Harry's smile was false and glassy as he saw that today's fourth period class was DADA with Lockhart the Incompetent. With his turquoise robes, his truly stupid how-wonderful-am-I quiz, and his unconquerably savage Cornish Pixies.

Having finished breakfast and giving the first-years an extra ten minutes, the trio gathered up the youngsters and had them lead the way back to the tower. The trip was done in a reasonable time with only two almost arguments as to 'which way do we go now'.

After gathering his books needed for today's classes, Harry then pulled most of them out of his book bag and disappeared them into Hermione's backpack.

She accepted them without comment, but the look she gave Harry told him another mark had been made in her Book of Harry Acting Strange. With Harry carrying his shabby, worn book bag for one of its last days, the two headed for Herbology, their first class of the new year.

Harry made a point of having him and Hermione partner up with Neville. Harry now knew the painfully shy boy was an Herbology prodigy. Hermione was happy to follow Harry as she remembered Neville being very good from last year.

Being with Neville could be particularly important in this lesson. Today was what led to having the all-important mandrake petrification antidote for later in the year. Harry was sure the antidote would not be needed this year but if his recall was right, Neville was rendered unconscious by an immature mandrake scream and his passing out in the middle of class was another kick in the teeth of his self-confidence.

In fact, something Harry had brought up deliberately during a supposedly idle conversation with Hermione at the Manor was how if they had persuaded Neville to go with them to save the stone, each of the traps would have had a 'First-Year expert' to deal with them.

He had not felt that he had to spell out each 'challenge' again for her. He wanted her to reason the clues out for herself. Especially as he planned to unsubtly bludgeon her with his new awareness about how rigged the whole "adventure" had been.

Getting Hermione to see how they, and Harry in particular, had been manipulated into every move by the Headmaster, was one of Harry's first steps into breaking the near idolatry the girl held for McGonagall (Professor McGonagall, Harry) and Fumbledork.

In fact, after Friday, if he did it right, he could not only get Hermione to understand but support his supposed quickly-developed dislike for the Headmaster.

Transfiguration had gone well. Hermione had done the beetle-to-button transfiguration first, and Harry had been less than a deliberate, minute behind her, earning Gryffindor fifteen points. Therefore, Harry was feeling no trepidation as after lunch, the Gryffindors walked to the DADA classroom.

Changes, changes, changes. This time there was no Colin loudly asking him to sign a photo. Therefore, no excuse for Malfoy the Mouth to start a confrontation in the hall outside the DADA classroom. Harry was able to sneak into the room before Lockhart, so he missed the humiliating lecture about 'managing his celebrity-hood'. A bonus was not giving Malfoy a free cast at humiliating Harry for his supposed handing out signed photographs.

Hmmm. Ron had a working wand this year. He'd forgotten about that also.

He watched calmly as Lockhart ran through his spiel about "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honourary Member of the Dark Forces Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award. But I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!" (1)

Some students laughed. Harry was one of those who just smiled weakly.

The Gilderoy Lockhart Test was duly handed out, gathered, and then critiqued by the Great Man himself. Again, only Hermione got all the answers correct. His acknowledging her, and giving her a roguish smile and wink as he announced her feat, had the poor girl nearly combusting from the praise.

"Now on to business," he bent down and lifted a large, covered cage onto his desk.

From there on, the scene played out as Harry remembered. Lockhart pontificating on the danger, Seamus snorting with laughter, when the cover was whipped off. The Cornish pixies going crazy as they saw the children in the room.

And then, of course, Lockhart opened the cage door. The resultant pandemonium was just as bad as before. Windows broken, ink tossed everywhere, parchments and books ripped or shredded, most of the class joining their teacher hiding under the desks.

One of the few differences was Harry 'saved' Neville from being hung from the room's chandelier, then, with a sigh for his own stupidity, saved a screaming Ron from a similar fate, by casting Immobilous on the pixies attacking both boys.

Meanwhile, Hermione was using Immobilous, Petrificus Totalus, and Flipendo Charms and recaptured the pixies that had not fled through the broken classroom windows and stuffed them back in their cage.

Harry looked around at the devastation wrought by the tiny blue creatures and for some reason felt happy.

"Yup, some things are still the same," he thought with a small smile.

*/

Thursday felt odd to Harry. He was having to work at seeming to be a Second-Year. Keeping his power reined in during Charms class while improving his performance to just behind Hermione's was harder than he thought it would be.

In History of Magic, after five minutes he quietly asked Hermione which goblin Binns was talking about, and upon hearing Urg the Unclean, said, "Right, led the rebellion of 1172. He lost to a wizard army led by Brutalus Black. A lot of families became rich with goblin gold after that war."

And promptly put his head down and went to sleep.

The stare that was burning against the back of his head should have set his hair on fire.

He continued acting normal with Hermione in class and while walking the halls, but after an hour of pondering the feeling, he realized he was missing the presence of Ron at his other side. Which again begged the question. Was the redhead his friend or was Ron-the-Prat someone best avoided in the future?

A thought occurred to him during his pondering, why had Ron acted so normal during their Diagon Alley shopping trip? Yet was such a git during the Express trip?

He drew Hermine's ire while doing their Transfiguration homework after lunch because he was not concentrating on the homework, merely sitting staring off into space.

He begged off after a while, claiming he was going to nap before Astronomy class that night. Her return 'You're lying to me, and I don't like that' glare didn't faze him.

For the first time since his return, he had no idea what to do, so he fell into his default mode when he thought he was the only person he could count on.

He started brooding. All he wanted was for everyone to leave him alone. If they wanted his attention, they could piss off.

He had roamed the castle for hours trying to exhaust himself so he would stop thinking. He had been so involved with his inheritance, his lordship, and above all, trying to keep Dumbledore from taking it all away from him, again, that he had forced himself to power through his usual self-doubt. That, and his determination not to let his parents down, had carried him through the summer.

For some reason, he had fooled himself into believing that getting back to the castle would make all his anxieties go away. That had not happened.

His upcoming talk with Hermione had his stomach tied in knots. The strain of not flashing his three years of increased knowledge and power he now had thanks to core binding releases had him overthinking and stressing about his wand work.

And lastly, due to Upper Management's strictures, he keenly felt he had no one to confide in or lean on for help.

While the rest of the house went to dinner, he crawled into his bed and pulled the curtains tight around himself.

A moderate headache had started while he was roaming the seventh-floor west corridor and he desperately wanted some sleep to let it fade away.

His napping was more of a light doze as he constantly rethought everything that had happened in the last month.

Of course, his thoughts kept circling back to his problem that he had dodged his best friend's questions, and kept secrets from her for nearly a month, and she had not deserted him like Ron-the-Prat from last year. Or two years from now, or whatever. Stupid time travel.

After a double-potions class in the morning, second year Gryff's would be done for the week. Harry dreaded all that 'free' time being available. Hermione was going to have plenty of time to pry his secrets out like her parents pulling an infected tooth. Without painkillers.

/*

Neville, sent by Hermione, had to literally drag Harry out of bed in the morning.

"Sorry, Harry. She gave me orders, and she scares me worse than you do," the boy said shoving Harry into the bathroom.

It was a bleary-eyed, hair every which way, school uniform askew Harry who lurched down the steps into the common room twenty minutes later.

He stumbled to a stop as thirteen pairs of eyes swiveled around to him. "Ooops! Should've known Mother Hen Hermione would have all her chicks up for another castle tour again this morning."

All eyes locked on Harry's bushy-haired friend as she walked up to him shaking her head and tsk-ing to herself. She reached up and retied his tie, straightened his school robe, and started to rake her fingers through his hair in an effort to bring some order to it.

As Harry tried to draw away from the last, she promptly grabbed him by the tie and pulled him down to within easier reach.

It only took a few seconds for her to realize the futility of her efforts, so she let him go, straightening his tie as she did.

Frowning a bit at Harry, she said, "Harry, they have a free period first hour, then History of Magic second hour. Could you show them how to get to Binn's classroom on the way to the Great Hall?"

At his nod, she announced, "Everyone buddy up like yesterday. And pay attention. You'll be getting a bit of a castle tour this time."

/*

Potions turned out to be far better than any potions class before. With Ron still being a git, Harry ended up pairing with Hermione to brew the Fire Protection Potion.

After a quiet reminder not to look the Dungeon Bat (Professor Snape, Harry.) in the eye, Harry found it almost easy not to try to out-stare the Greasy Git in an effort to prove he was not intimidated by him.

Harry found that not wanting to accidentally look Snape in the eye was easy as his tormentor hovered over them making his usual insults about the quality of the potion they were brewing. In fact, ignoring the awful instructor actually improved his concentration.

As they turned in their potion at the end of class, his surly grunt of "Adequate" was acceptable to Harry despite his fuming best friend, who complained sotto voce as they left the classroom. He was surprised by her comment about how that 'abomination of a supposed teacher' could mark down their perfect potion.

As lunch progressed, Harry's gut started churning as he knew what was coming. Hermione had been the model of restraint once she had been given, albeit accidentally, an end date to Harry's "secrets".

She was disgustingly cheerful all meal. Even when she noticed him starting to merely push the food around on his plate, she merely leaned in and whispered, "Might as well eat. Nothing will change whether your stomach is full, almost empty, or totally empty because your nerves made you throw up."

Harry looked at her in shock.

She merely shrugged. "Welcome to my world. You've had my insides twisted in knots for a month. I don't think I'm a bad person for enjoying a bit of petty revenge."

She chose that moment to take a delicate bite of her chicken salad sandwich and exaggerated her chewing while maintaining eye contact with him.

"Finish your lunch, Harry. You'll need your strength. It's going to be a lo-o-ng afternoon."

A/N:

One: Quoted from, HP and the Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 6.

Not sure about this one, but set-up chapters exist for a reason.