Is it worth it to read the old: in my basis opinion, no. I've had to edit every forsaken line in this fic and in effort to not replot this, I'm just letting some of it go. For instance, some of the dialogue I'm leaning into my ADHD, if you don't have it, enjoy your executive functionality, braggarts ;D
oOo
Fanon/Canon: I do not care about either. I know there are certain elements I explore that are unappreciated, but no, I'm not changing it. HP is not a fandom with a shortish fics, if you want a power-fantasy, this ain't it.
Chapter 4: A Shift in the Paradigm
Harry almost walked into Lucius Malfoy. He looked up at the well groomed, proud, blonde pureblood and remembered him unkempt on his knees, remembered him being tortured, remembered him and his wife pleading and fighting for Draco's life.
Lucius had such different beliefs from Harry's and yet- and yet Harry felt the hatred he had always had for this man fade. Harry would fight him if he tried to hurt someone he cared for, but he pitied the wizard too much to work up enough resentment to hate him.
"Hello Mr. Malfoy," Harry greeted cordially.
Both Arthur and Lucius froze in what they were going to say and stared down at the Boy Who Lived.
Lucius regained himself first. "Mr. Potter," he said civilly.
"Hope you've been enjoying the summer," Harry said.
oOo
Lucius wasn't quite gaping openly at Potter as Arthur was , but it was a near thing.
"It has been refreshingly sunny," Lucius said automatically. "How has your summer been?" His upbringing more or less demanded he be polite to someone being polite to him unless they were a mudblood or a blood traitor. Harry Potter, by definition, a blood traitor, however, he was too, too- influential to be rude to if the boy had gone out of his way to be civil.
"I've been reading a lot, trying to catch up on wasted time and all," Potter answered.
Lucius raised a brow. Should he probe? Potter was many things, a liar—despite what the papers said—was not among them. Which meant that the Dark Lord was back, even if Lucius personally had had no contact with him. Severus hadn't told him anything other than Dumbledore believed Potter and was searching. "Draco has been studying as well as the OWLs are this year. I must get on with my business here," Lucius said, trying to extract himself from this bizarre interaction. "I trust your trial went in your favor?"
Harry nodded, "It did. Have a good day, Mr. Malfoy."
Maybe the world had turned upside down.
oOo
"Good day, Mr. Potter," Lucius said, a thoughtful expression laying claim to his features.
Harry pulled Arthur along to the exit.
When they were out of earshot Arthur demanded, "What was that?"
"Manners?" Harry replied. "I didn't say anything wrong did I?"
Arthur shook his head, "No, but that was Malfoy." He said Malfoy the way Harry said Wormtail.
"You don't have to trust them, but you don't have to treat them like enemies to know that they are," Harry said.
Arthur frowned, "He is our enemy."
"Maybe, but he is also a self centered person and a father. He is not a good person but that does not mean he is incapable of doing good things."
"And what are the chances that man does something good for anyone else?"
Harry shrugged, "When someone makes him choose between his idea of the way the world should be and his family."
Arthur didn't seem to know what to say to that. He clearly wanted to say that Malfoy was all evil but they both knew Arthur was capable of doing very bad things to save his family. Arthur shook his head again, "You should not trust that man."
"I don't," Harry said. "But I don't have to go out of my way to be mean to him either."
"You went out of your way to be nice to him," Arthur muttered.
Harry grinned up at him, "And the looks on your faces was completely worth it."
Arthur laughed as they stepped into the streets of Muggle London.
oOo
Sirius and Harry were sitting with Buckbeak in Sirius's mother's room as Harry described the trial.
"You really weren't worried?" Sirius asked.
"I haven't been preaching that Voldemort is going to come back, that's Dumbledore's gig. I don't think the public hates me enough that the Ministry could get away with snapping my wand. Still, Fudge wanted to do it. Madame Bones didn't give him the chance. He's not evil, but I think he's someone who would help it along," Harry said, resting his chin on his knees.
Sirius nodded, "He's jealous of Dumbledore. His weaknesses and insecurities drive him to do stupid things. Not a good combination for a leader."
Harry sighed, "Humans aren't the best."
Rubbing his beard, Sirius asked more softly, "Harry, why aren't you hanging out with Ron and Hermione?"
He shrugged, "I'll be with them all year, I have one night left to spend with you."
Sirius smiled, "I'm going to miss you."
Not as much as I've missed you, Harry thought.
"How hard is it to become an animagus?"
Grinning Sirius answered, "Harder yet simpler than you would think. James had an easier time with it than I did. It involves a lot of soul searching, or in my case, a lot of trusting your own magic. James was able to picture his animal form before his first time. I just jumped into it and Pete- Well, James and I practiced transfiguring him into a rat and eventually he figured it out for himself."
"Wait, so did you guys pick a rat for his form?" Harry asked.
"No, there is a transfiguration spell that just turns people into an animal, a non-specified animal. Most people don't use it in duals because there is always the chance the person turns into a lion and then you're in worse shape than you were with the human, magical or otherwise."
"So why did my dad have an easier time with it than you?"
Sirius put a hand into his curls, pulling gently at his scalp. "James was more comfortable with himself. Of course, why shouldn't he have been? He was rich, talented, good looking, and had parents who loved him. Your grandparents, Harry, were remarkable people. They took me in when I ran away at sixteen. At any rate, James liked who he was, knew who he was, sure he was full of himself, and big headed at times but he never had a problem with who he was.
"Me on the other hand. Well, did Remus ever tell you about what I did to Snape?"
Harry shook his head. He knew the story but he'd never heard Sirius tell it.
"Well, we were always picking on Snape. We were bullies really, not that Snivellus didn't give as good as he got but we were usually the ones to start it. That the girl James was gone on was Snape's best friend made him a constant irritatent to James."
"My mum's best friend was Snape?" Harry asked, he knew that Snape had been friends with his mom but not that they had mutually been that close.
"Yep. Lily was… how do I say this? Lils was a bit like Hermione. Brilliant, bullheaded, and not always the easiest person to like until you really got to know her. She was a lot to take in, but she was unfailingly kind. You got that from her."
Harry smiled, it was rare anyone told him he was like her, beyond the color of his eyes. "At any rate, as we got older I think our pranks got meaner, as did Snape. He figured out there was something up with Remus and he kept watching us.
"You have to understand, Harry, that I honestly believed that if Snape found out about Remus being a werewolf he would find a way to get him expelled. Or worse if his 'friends' got involved. Aside from Greyback, Voldemort isn't kind to those who are less than pure, less than loyal."
"Why did you hate him so much? It always seems personal between you two. I mean, I know why I hate, because now he's the bully."
Sirius let out a breath, "Snape was tacit friends with my little brother. After all I did to protect Reggie from the worst of our parents, there he was with some halfblood determined to join a cult that would happily massacre his entire family. His muggle father for what he was and his mother for polluting the Prince line. He even went by Half-Blood Prince, the absolute twat. Mind you, Snape never came off as someone with a loving family, but I doubt his family was shoving the garbage about blood purity mine was."
Because Harry knew them all now,
Andromeda Tonks had been tortured for Harry's sake, he asked, "How did your cousins handle it?"
Sirius snorted, "My sisters, cousins, but raised as sisters did not handle the pressure well. Bella was not crazy her entire life. When we were children, she was actually quite kind, always high-spirited but she was… a whimsical child. She never cared about appearances, until she got into Hogwarts and my Aunt beat that care into her. Being the oldest, she took the brunt of it, and like Regulus, as the youngest, Narcissa learned well enough by example. If her father ever raised a hand to her, it wasn't out of need."
"And Andromeda?"
Sirius smiled, "She was my favourite, still is, though I doubt she thinks well of me know even if her daughter has told her about me. Andromeda was a quiet pillar of strength, with a wicked sense of humour. She had a particular mischief about her, and unlike me, she was able to put aside her ego well enough to never get caught for it. She was, at one point, meant to be my wife."
Harry choked, "What!?"
"Originally, I was engaged to Bella, but then I was sorted into Gryffindor and that flew out the window."
"You can't be serious! She's your first cousin!"
Sirius barked a rough laugh, "More than my first, both my parents shared the same last name before they were married if you remember. Despite my delinquent ways, I was still Heir to House of Black and my Aunt still wanted her direct line to inherit, even if my reputation wasn't grand enough for her eldest. Andi married Ted when I was sixteen and I gave her back her dowry, my mother nearly murdered me for it. That's when I ran."
Harry shook his head, "Your line didn't marry siblings, did they?"
Sirius patted his knee, "Don't worry, despite wizards keeping their witches under lock and key, none of the lines are as pure as they want them to be."
Harry gave him a suspicious look, "And what does that mean?"
Sirius smiled, "Fertility potions are a bit iffy. For instance, you can permanently turn a woman into a man but it's fifty-fifty whether or not that child could sire children or vice-versa. At least it was when I was a child, I don't know what medical advances have been made since then. Add that to the fact that inbreeding is infamous for causing fertility concerns, and well, witches over the centuries have found their own ways in acquiring children. A few glamour spells and no one ever has to know that a witch's spouse need never attend his duties."
Harry blinked, "You mean…"
Sirius grinned, "I mean, I'm a Black, regrettably, through and through, as I am my mother's child. But whether my father was my sire? I will never know, the spells for tracking such things have laws against their use and they are non-applicable in court."
"Really?" Harry asked, fascinated. "One too many lords cheated out of their inheritance, and there was a time witches were executed for infidelity, even if it wasn't by choice. Merlin was the one who put an end to that nearly a thousand years ago."
Harry's expression must have been greatly contorted because Sirius chuckled and ruffled his hair.
"You see how much I hated it? The history I came from? I'll never understand anyone who wants to be a pureblood. Hogwarts was my first escape from it. Figures my first friend would be a pureblood, but the Potters were practically a blood traitor, like the Weasleys. It was the best years of my life. Then there was Snape, dabbling in the Dark Arts, courting baby Death Eaters, pulling my little brother into something he wasn't ready for. My parents were horrible people who believed everything Voldemort did, but they never threw in with him, not their lives, futures, or money. But Reggie did, because he wanted to be like the genius Potions Master a year ahead of him who his brother didn't like. And with all of that, Snape wouldn't stop following Lily around, a young witch who was muggleborn during a civil war.
"I don't think he ever understood how much danger he put her in. I had more reasons to hate Snape than the others and when he started sniffing around Remus… I did something unforgivable. Two wrongs, do not make a right, as you have reminded me in the past.
"When Snape didn't let it go, I goaded him into finding a way to the Shrieking Shack on the Full Moon."
"Did you mean to kill him?" Harry asked.
"No," Sirius said, his face flushed with shame. "At least, I wasn't thinking that far ahead. But I was a fool, because I should have acknowledged that Snape could have gotten killed or turned, which no child deserves. I think I hurt Remus more than anyone there though. Had Remus woken up to either having turned someone else or killing Severus…" He took a deep breath. "Frankly, I am surprised Remus ever forgave me. Neither he nor James talked to me for weeks afterwards and I had detention for the rest of the year. By rights, I should have been expelled, but Albus is very good at giving second chances, especially to people who probably don't deserve it."
"You're not a bad person," Harry said.
Sirius smiled sadly, "I'm far from perfect. It's why when I became an animagus I wasn't able to see what I would be, because I wasn't willing to look that deep. So I jumped blindly, knowing I was strong enough magically to achieve it. I was a dog and it was great, until I saw my reflection. Figures I would be a Grim. An omen of death."
Harry put a hand on Sirius's shoulder, "I've made mistakes too."
"Not ones that resulted in people dying, Harry," Sirius said.
Harry felt his heart ache and he wanted to tell Sirius that he had, so many times over. In truth, Harry wasn't even sure he was aware of everyone who had died on his behalf.
But he wasn't ready to tell Sirius about the future. A future Harry had every intention of changing.
Yet, Harry's years before fifth hadn't exactly been easy either, "I killed Professor Quirrell."
Sirius blinked, "What?"
"Quirinus Quirrell, I killed him in my first year."
Sirius looked lost, "Why? How? Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Dumbledore hushed it up I think. 'His death was a terrible accident.' But it wasn't, I killed him, and I didn't have to. Had I just kept my nose out of it Dumbledore's Mirror of Erised would have kept it safe."
"Keep what safe?"
"The Philosopher's Stone."
"What was that doing at Hogwarts and why would Quirinus want- He was working for Voldemort?"
"He had Voldemort sticking out of the back of his head. He wore a turban to class, he was our DADA Professor."
Sirius just stared at Harry for a moment. Finally, he asked, "How did you kill him?"
"I held onto his face."
"That doesn't make any sense. Harry, how does holding onto his face kill a wizard plus a dark lord?"
"Whatever my mother did to save me, it kept the Dark Lord from being able to touch me. Touching hurts us both, but it burned Quirrell's face and I held on even when I passed out. It resulted in killing Quirrell. Voldemort got away as a spirit."
"You were eleven?" Sirius asked.
"Yes."
"Merlin, Harry! Why didn't you ask for help?"
"We told McGonagall someone was after the stone. We thought it was Snape but he turned out to be protecting the thing. Hermione figured out how to get by Fluffy and the plants. I caught the key and Ron won the chess match, while Hermione got past the potions. I got Voldemort-Quirrell and the stone in the mirror."
"Harry, Quirrell was a fully fledged wizard; he could have killed you."
"I killed him first and if I had been smarter I wouldn't have been in that situation."
"Harry-" Sirius was cut off when Mrs. Weasley knocked on the door.
"Come on out you two, we are celebrating!" she called.
Buckbeak squawked at the door, annoyed on their behalf, before combing his beak through Harry's hair.
"Coming, Molly!" Sirius called.
Harry sighed up at Buckbeak, "Happy."
Buckbeak huffed at him.
"We need finish this conversation. But I wanted to ask you before we go down about how you're feeling about being passed up as prefect? Are you disappointed? You haven't been talking much to your friends as much, is it because of this?"
"I am not upset about it, I don't want the responsibility. Especially, since I have to take Occlumency with Snape," Harry couldn't keep the distaste out of his voice. He never wanted another person in his mind, least of all with all the secrets he had now. Snape or Dumbledore knowing he was a Harry from the future was nothing but trouble.
"You seem so distant with them. You sent me a lot of letters this summer, did you exchange of them with them? I am sure Hermione would talk with you about school work for hours."
"It isn't them, Sirius, it's me. After the last task, after seeing Wormtail and Voldemort again it just sort of hit me. This life isn't a game, I could have died, and if Cedric was with me… it isn't a fairytale, some adventure, people could get hurt, permanently. I am having a hard time keeping my patience with Ron and even Hermione. She's brilliant but she also… she also assumes she knows everything or at least is cable of understanding everything and anything. She thinks you can learn it in a book, and that everyone has the same moral compass. But you can't, there are some things that you just can't understand. Right and wrong isn't so black and white."
Sirius looked at Harry as if he had never seen him before. "You're a wiser and a better man than I will ever be. Just promise you'll try to have fun this year, don't take life so seriously you forget to enjoy what you have."
Harry nodded, holding on a bit too tightly as Sirius pulled him in for a hug.
Not to be out done, Buckbeak wrapped a wing around them both, hugging them between his wing and feathered neck.
"Hey Sirius?" Harry asked pausing at the open door with the rattling cabinet that housed the bogat. "Can I borrow your wand?"
Sirius looked into the room, "You want to take care of the boget? Didn't I just tell you to have fun?"
"Ridiculous is fun," Harry said innocently.
Sirius rolled his eyes but stood back waving Harry forward, passing him his wand. Harry swished the wand that seemed to purr in his hand, not like it saw him as a master but like a cat momentarily approving of him. The cabinet unlocked and the boget emerged, shifted and it wasn't a Dementor that emerged, but his mother. She was beautiful, fiery hair, shining emerald eyes so similar to his own. She held out her hand, beckoning him forward and what she said sent a chill down to his very soul, "Harry, my son, this dream is ending."
Harry screamed a ridiculous at her, and she shattered into glass shards as if she had been a stained glass window, the shards whirled into a small vortex shrinking into a spot on the floor. The Resurrection Stone rested inertly on the ground and Harry understood what his fear was. He feared his parents wanted him dead, that Sirius wanted him dead, that Harry himself really was dead and this second chance was nothing more than a dream.
He raised Sirius's wand again and almost whispered, "Ridiculous." The stone turned into sand and faded into nothing, defeated.
It wasn't funny, but it was a joke. A joke that was at Harry's suspense.
Harry turned to give Sirius his wand back. Sirius and Snape were standing in the doorway. Snape was staring at the place where Lily had been standing.
"Harry! Sirius! Come down to eat!" Mrs. Weasley called.
Mrs. Black's portrait started shrieking.
Sirius took his wand back and went to go shut up his own mother, giving Harry a parting look though he didn't pry.
Sirius knew better than most that nightmares rarely took illogical shapes.
But there was someone else standing in the doorway who was far less sympathetic.
oOo
Severus couldn't move, staring at the spot where Potter's greatest fear had stood.
Finally he pulled his gaze away to focus on the boy, "You're afraid of Lily? You're own mother?"
"No," Potter answered. "I'm afraid that by dying for me, she died for nothing. Just one more sorrow in a lineage of pain and suffering."
Snape said nothing, could say nothing, only wonder at the boy who–as it would appear–he knew nothing about.
oOo
Harry stayed up late that night with Sirius. They avoided anymore emotionally depressing stories and Sirius stuck to stories about Transfiguration and detentions with James and McGonagall.
Sirius seemed better, more stable, than he had been last time around.
Harry would say he was surprised by the difference a few letters had helped, but they had helped Harry just as much.
Harry felt that he was able to convince Sirius to stay safe at Grimmauld Place. Even so, their group was almost late getting onto the Hogwarts Express.
Hermione and Ron went up front with the Prefects with the same apologies and appeasements. Harry watched them go with a feeling of profound relief. It was becoming quite aggravating to pretend he was normal around them, the rest of the year was going to be long.
His friends weren't stupid, they knew something had changed in him but, for now, they were letting it go when he evaded questions about how he was or when he did something out of character.
Harry had resorted to keeping his mouth mostly shut around them and only speaking when he had to. Which was a bad sign in and of itself. Yet Ron and Hermione seemed to attribute his behaviour to his long summer at the Dursleys with only two and half weeks at Grimmauld Place with Sirius.
Harry was barely paying attention as he took Hedwig and his luggage and followed Ginny.
Ginny who was now his ex-girlfriend. He still liked her, but seeing her younger, like she had been before the Department of Ministry, before her metal had been tested, he found he was more protective of her than felt anything romantic toward her.
He missed his Ginny.
He missed his Ron and Hermione.
People looked at him through windows and whispered to each other. Harry ignored them. They met Neville in the hall in front of Luna's compartment. Harry greeted Neville then took a seat beside Luna, not waiting for Ginny or Neville.
Luna wouldn't look at him like he was freak, or acting odd, or anything irritating that had his instincts honed by nearly of year of being hunted standing on end.
"Hi, Luna, can we sit with you?"
She looked up from her copy of the Quibbler, her wand behind her ear, and her eyes unblinking as she looked into him. The corner of her mouth turned up, "Hello, Harry."
"Thanks for letting us join you," said Ginny with a smile.
"How was your summer?" he asked her the blonde. Harry didn't know why exactly but it felt like Luna was the Luna from his time. Or maybe it was the fact that Harry knew for a fact that time travel wasn't something she would be overly surprised by or hold against him.
She put her magazine down and ran a hand over her long blonde curls. "Oh, it was good, quite lovely really."
She didn't say what had been lovely about it but Neville spoke before he could answer.
"Guess what I got for my birthday?"
"A plant?" Harry guessed and slipped out his wand. He was not getting slimed on this time around.
Neville grinned, holding up the pot proudly, "Mimbulus mimbletonia." Harry smiled, though he already had his wand at the ready, "It looks cool. What can it do?"
"It's really, really rare," said Neville, beaming. "I don't know if there's one in the greenhouse at Hogwarts, even. I can't wait to show it to Professor Sprout. My Great Uncle Algie got it for me in Assyria. I'm going to see if I can breed from it. It's got an amazing defensive mechanism. Here, hold Trevor for me."
"Neville, I don't think that is a good idea," Harry started but he was too late.
Harry's shield charm saved Luna and himself, but Ginny and Neville…
"Sosorry," he gasped. "I haven't tried that before. . . . Didn't realise it would be quite so. . . Don't worry, though, Stinksap's not poisonous," he added nervously, looking at Ginny who spat out a mouthful onto the floor.
At that precise moment the door of their compartment slid open.
"Oh . . . hello, Harry," said a nervous voice. "Um . . . bad time?" It was Cho Chang, the Seeker on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.
"Hi," said Harry. Cho was still pretty but Harry no longer had the slightest interest. He hadn't since dating Ginny.
"How's Cedric?" Harry asked.
"Don't know, we, um broke up," she said. "Well … just thought I'd say hello . . . 'bye then."
Rather pink in the face, she closed the door and departed.
Neville was still apologizing to glowering Ginny when Harry flicked his wand, "Scourgify!"
The Stinksap vanished.
"Sorry," said Neville again, in a small voice.
Ron and Hermione did not turn up for nearly an hour, by which time the food trolley had already gone by.
"I'm starving," said Ron, stowing Pigwidgeon next to Hedwig, grabbing a Chocolate Frog from Harry and throwing himself into the seat next to him. He ripped open the wrapper, bit off the frog's head and leaned back with his eyes closed as asked, "Guess who's a Slytherin prefect?"
"Draco," Harry said as he flipped through a copy of the Quibbler Luna had given him.
"Course," said Ron bitterly, stuffing the rest of the Frog into his mouth and taking another.
"And that complete cow Pansy Parkinson," said Hermione viciously. "How she got to be a prefect when she's thicker than a concussed troll…"
Harry pointed to an article about Disney Paris, "I want to try that."
"What?" Ron asked.
Luna looked over and smiled, "It would be fun."
"Performing magic tricks at a muggle amusement park," Harry explained.
"That's illegal," Hermione said.
Harry shrugged, "Not if your not harming anyone or doing stuff that can't be accomplished without magic. Like levitation or sparks or making birds appear. It would be fun to do in front of children who believe and parents who don't and know that it really is real."
Ron looked at Harry, "You want to entertain muggle children?"
"For one afternoon it might be fun."
Luna nodded.
"I can't wait to catch Malfoy and his goons at something. I'll make Goyle do lines, it'll kill him, he hates writing," said Ron happily. He lowered his voice to Goyle's low grunt and, screwing up his face in a look of pained concentration, mimed writing in midair. "I . . . must . . . not . . . look . . . like . . . a . . . baboon's . . . backside. "
Everyone laughed, but nobody laughed harder than Luna Lovegood. She laughed so hard her magazine slipped out of her grasp, slid down her legs, and onto the floor.
Ron looked around at the others, who were now laughing at the expression on Ron's face as she continued to laugh.
"Baboon's . . . backside!" she choked, holding her ribs.
Harry grinned at her laughing.
"Anything good in there?" asked Ron as Harry closed the magazine.
"Of course not," Hermione said scathingly, before Harry could answer. "The Quibbler's rubbish, everyone knows that."
"Hermione," Harry said sharply, "Mr. Lovegood is the Editor of the Quibbler."
Hermione's cheeks darkened as she stumbled over an apology.
The compartment door opened, and Harry chose to do the same thing he had to Mr. Malfoy, "Hello Draco. How are you? I saw your father at the Ministry yesterday, he said you've already been studying for the OWL's have you gotten far with the History book yet? I swear the book is more use than Professor Bins."
Draco was floored by this greeting and by Harry's apparently sincere demeanor.
"He isn't the most interesting professor, is he?" Luna asked, "Pity, I thought it would have been fun to learn from a ghost."
"The Bloody Baron would be a good story teller I'd bet," Harry replied to her.
Draco stood frozen in the doorway and Harry had to bite his cheek at the mirror of Lucius's expression he was wearing, and like his father, training kicked in.
"I'm rather good at history. It is the DADA book that is giving me trouble. I don't know what we will learn in that class that might be useful for OWL's."
"I was thinking of starting a DADA club this year," Harry said causally. "So students can practice outside of class."
"Might be fun," Draco said, warily. "I need to go keep checking the train, me being a Prefect and all." He was starting to build up his steam again only to be thoroughly deflated by Harry's next remark.
"Yeah, congratulations, it's a big achievement. See you around."
oOo
Draco was at a complete loss. He could not detect the slightest bit of sarcasm from Potter's tone. He stepped back, shut the door, and walked away with Crabbe and Goyle at his heels.
He felt as if he had just entered an alternate universe where Potter hadn't rebuffed his offer of friendship.
oOo
Ron, Hermione, and Neville gaped at him.
"I think the Bloody Baron might be too descriptive and then we wouldn't have time to learn all the facts," Luna said, continuing the conversation.
"At least I wouldn't be tempted to doze off in class," Harry quipped.
"I like sketching in his class while I listen. I just take the notes from the book," she said, her large blue eyes staring at him unblinkingly.
"Smart," Harry said.
"Harry?" Ron questioned outraged, "What the bloody hell was that?"
"What was what?"
"You were nice to Malfoy."
"Yeah, and he left us alone," Harry rebuked.
Hermione was frowning at him, "Did you mean what you said?"
"About what?"
"About a DADA club?"
Harry shrugged, "It seems like fun and as long as we don't have someone like Lockhart running it might be helpful."
They all rode in silence after that. Harry took Hedwig out of her cage and petted her as he watched the world speed by outside the train window.
Hedwig hopped onto his lap so Luna could pet her too.
When they reached the carraiges Harry rested Hedwig's cage on his trunk so he could pet the nearest thestral.
They were supremely soft, their leathery-looking skin was covered with the finest fuz of black fur. looked into the thestrals white eye and smiled. He wondered if dying gave him a closer bound to these animals because the great head rubbed into Harry's touch and made a pleased clicking noise in its throat.
"Harry," Hermione started, "What are you petting?"
"Come on, let's get a carriage together before they all fill up," Ron erged.
"Seriously, what are you doing?" Hermione asked.
"Just petting the carriage horse?" Harry answered.
Ron looked seriously alarmed now.
"Are you feeling all right, Harry?"
Harry lingered, part of him overjoyed to be back at Hogwarts, as other part of him dreaded the beginning of this year.
"Shall we get in, then?" Ron asked, greatly concerned.
Luna came to stand with Harry, "I can see them, too."
"They're nicer than you think they would be," Harry remarked, giving the thestral a soft pat on the shoulder.
"You're nicer than I thought you would be," she said.
Harry looked at her but she only smiled faint before climbing into the carriage.
oOo
AN: Thoughts, lamias, or things you wanted to see added to future chapters?
