It was saturday morning and harry was sat at breakfast when a piece of parchment made its way onto his plate. he had been back for less than three days, and had already fucked up. It was an invitation for tea right after breakfast from the old goat. "What'd it say mate?" Ron still had the fork in his mouth as he spoke and Harry couldn't help the grimace that came to his face, but managed to vale the disgust well enough at Ron's blatant lack of anything that could be considered manners.

"Merlin Weasley we all know you were raised in a barn, you don't have to remind us." Harry took a sip of his pumpkin juice to hide his amusement, and made eye contact with Malfoy who was standing behind Ron, smirking back at harry. That one comment was all it took for Ron to start shouting. Harry turned to Hermione who looked like she was about to intervene.

"It was a note from Dumbledore asking me to have tea with him. I don't want to keep him waiting, so I have to go." not waiting for her to reply he left and made his way to Dumbles office. He was quickly called in and shown to a seat, where tea was already laid out. He took a cup and felt his ring heat up indicating it was laced with a potion. The goblins had reassured him that with all his rings he would be protected against all potions and mind magics, so without hesitating he took a sip. Dumbledore seemed to brighten when Harry set the half drunk cup back on the table.

"My boy, I heard you were affected rather badly by the dementors." Harry was surprised. He would have thought the headmaster would have heard about what he did on the train, but it would appear he hadn't, and after what he fed Weasley and Granger the headmaster looked no further into it. "Unfortunately I was unable to convince the ministry that having them here was a bad idea." That was a lie and Harry knew it. He knew Dumbles had agreed to house the dementors without a fuss. Lusius had sidetracked into a small rant about it in one of his letters. "You see, we believe Sirius Black has a reason to come to Hogwarts. We believe he is after you." Harry tried to look suitably shocked and unnerved by the news as Dumbledore continued to give the story about how his parents were betrayed, and so on. "So I must ask Harry where you were yesterday?" Harry stiffened in his chair. "You can understand with the risk to you this year, that your friends were worried when you didn't turn up for dinner and the portraits were unable to locate you." a shiver ran through Harry's body at the thought of just how closely the headmaster had been watching him. He would need to cut down on using the parcel passageways and make sure the portraits saw him around the castle. He would also need to find a place he could be seen spending time in that wouldn't seem too suspicious.

"Yesterday I realized how little I know of the castle and decided to go exploring." He averted his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. "I may have brought my dads cloak with me." He hoped it was a good enough explanation. looking back he saw that it was. Dumbles was in full twinkle mode and was grinning broadly.

"It's not a crime to be curious, Harry, just be careful. We wouldn't want someone to find out you have a cloak like that." That felt suspiciously like a threat, and Harry was not happy about it, but he just nodded. He was shortly dismissed and as soon as he was at the bottom of the stairs Weasley and Granger were either side of him. On the way back to Gryffindor tower Harry told them all about Sirius Black, how horrible the man must be, and how scared Harry was. like the dutiful golden boy he was meant to be. Soon enough they made it to the tower and sat talking in some of the chairs for a good while before the idiots got into another fight, granger storming out of the common room, Ron right behind her still yelling. Harry had no intention of following and wondered how long it would take them to realize. Harry decided now was a good time to continue his transfiguration essay he was never able to finish yesterday. Ten minutes later Neville sat down opposite him.

"Do you mind if I sit with you, Heir potter?" Harry looked up sharply, eyes trailing across the common room looking for anyone who may have hurd. It appeared no one was paying attention but Harry didn't trust it and cast several discreet silencing and anti-eavesdropping spells.

"Not at all Heir Longbottom."Harry bowed his head slightly and Neville copied the movement, a small grin on his face. "Oh, and call me Harry. No need for the Heir stuff when not in a formal setting."

"Likewise, you can just call me Neville." He turned slightly and made a 'come here' motion with his hand. "Would you mind if Dean and Seamus joined us? We were wondering if you would be willing to help us with the transfiguration homework? It's none of our best subject." Dean and Seamus nodded their heads furiously from behind Neville.

"It's not my best subject either, however I wouldn't mind helping you." he gestured for them to sit and they did so eagerly. They sat like that, switching transfiguration for Charms when they were finished, until lunch. They packed up and made their way to the great hall, where they were accosted by the two idiots as soon as they walked through the door.

"Harry! Where have you been?! We've been looking everywhere for you." Granger was being loud enough that she had attracted the attention of half the hall, so Harry put on his best confused and slightly hurt expression before speaking.

"What do you mean? You and Ron left me in the common room. You two were arguing and stormed out. I was with Seamus, Dean, and Neville, in the common room. We worked on homework." He frowned at her slightly and made his way to the table. Neville immediately took the seat to Harry's right, Dean and Seamus taking the seats opposite. Harry had to squash the laugh trying to bubble up at the indignant looks on Weasley and Granger's faces, while Harry, Neville, Dean, and Seamus continued the conversation they were having before.

The rest of his day was spent hanging out with Neville, Dean, Seamus, Ron, and Hermione. And by this point Harry was suspicious, Dean Seamus and Neville were actively, yet discreetly, blocking Ron and Hermione from Harry, as well as excluding them from conversation and any decisions that were made regarding what they were going to do. Harry couldn't say he was upset by it, but he was definitely dinner was finished he noticed Neville distracting the idiots and leading them to the tower once again leaving harry alone. Not wasting his chance he left towards an abandoned part of the castle making sure to keep in sight of some of the portraits as he looked around. He never had been in these areas of the castle before and wondered if he could make something like a 'secret base' that the headmaster could inspect only to find nothing of interest but enough to satisfy him of what Harry was up to. Running his hand along the wall he pushed a bit of magic into it, and asked if there was a room around here that connected to the parcel passageways. Instantly he felt a tug at his hand and he followed it. It led him to an entirely empty room that clearly hadn't been used in a decade or two. One of the walls was lined in floor to ceiling windows, filling the room with natural light, another held a small fireplace. Harry liked it. An insistent tugging led him to a back wall where there was a small carving of a snake and Harry decided to head to the ROR through the passageways to get furniture.

When he was finished he had set up a seating area to the right, where the fireplace was, and to the left was a large desk covered in broom parts and several books on enchanting. He had pulled some of the old brooms out of the ROR and had been dismantling them and working out how they functioned. It was something Harry had wanted to do for a long time and figured it was something the golden boy would be allowed to have an interest in if the old goat came looking. Lastly he set up some parseltongue detection spells that would tell him if anyone had been through them, and made his way back to the common room.