Chapter 5
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Life at Hogwarts moved smoothly from September into October and Harry had discovered a good rhythm to keeping a balance between school life, social life and Quidditch. Helping Hermione do up study schedules for Ron while playing chess with him, and losing, had helped solidify those friendships. He was getting on with the twins in his dorm too, he'd helped Eric and Euan with their Charms and Transfiguration wand movements and they'd started chatting with him more. He had a chat with Colin Creevey a few times, still running around with his camera everywhere he went, he was held back to repeat the sixth year that he'd missed. Colin's younger brother Denis tended to shadow his brother quietly, which no one talked about, the boy looked haunted by something and rarely smiled.
Harry wondered if he had that same haunted look on his face sometimes, particularly when he was feeling the urge to find some place secluded and simply lay down and be left alone.
He was pushing through those feelings though.
Dean had turned his romantic attention to a seventh-year girl in Ravenclaw that they sat with in Charms class named Henrietta after his attempts to win back Ginny had fallen flat.
It seemed like everyone was pairing off actually.
As he looked around him at breakfast one morning he saw all the couples sitting here and there. "Lot of Nargles floating around," said a serene voice to his left. It was Luna, whom he sat with in DADA and had many an interesting conversation with since their first encounter on the Hogwarts Express.
"And what exactly do Nargles do?" he asked.
"They make your brain go fuzzy and make you think you're in love," she told him simply and took a seat beside him, unconcerned that she wasn't at the Ravenclaw table.
"Would they be there even if you weren't actually in love?" He'd found that humoring her was a good way deal with any crazy theory she came up with.
"I suspect that they are only there in the beginning stages to help each partner come to terms with it. Then they float on to the next."
"Do I have any floating around me?" he asked, amused.
"Oh, that's sweet, but I'm not actually available," she told him and started loading up her plate.
He gave pause while he deciphered where exactly it was that he had supposedly said he was interested in her like that. "No, that's not what I-" He was saved from having to explain what he meant by the Owl Post arriving.
Happy for a distraction, and even happier to be receiving mail, he diverted his attention. It didn't really matter if Luna misunderstood him. He'd discovered that she wasn't bothered by a great many things that would have nagged at most people.
It was a big brown barn owl that dropped off something wrapped in brown paper with a note.
The note was in Sirius' handwriting. He had come back to the country to deal with some legal matters over the Black Estate before heading back somewhere tropical. They were planning on being together for Christmas, until then Sirius said he wanted to get as much luxuriating in as possible.
Harry, Get a move on, yeah? -Sirius
Harry frowned at the note and then unwrapped the gift.
He should have known better than to unwrap something that Sirius sent him with a note like that attached in public. He might have been able to disarm a Death Eater, or come face to face with the darkest wizard of their time, but he wasn't prepared for embarrassment!
"Ten Failsafe Ways to Charm Witches," Luna read out. "Is that why you were hoping for Nargles to be floating around you?"
Surely his face would have moved well beyond the color red by now.
"Keep it down, will you?" he asked her desperately and stashed the book in his bag. "No, that was not why I asked. My godfather just thinks he's funny, that's why he sent me this book."
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about. I hadn't' kissed anyone until last April."
"Yes, well I'm happy for you and Neville, but this hasn't been at the top of my priority list." Harry hoped that she would move on to talking about something else.
"I don't believe I ever told you his name," she gave Harry a hard stare.
"Well, I never said it was you that I had heard it from, did I?" he countered quickly and effectively. It was a little odd that Luna had never mentioned her boyfriend to him in the past month that they'd had interactions, but then Luna herself was a little odd all around. He could have easily claimed it had been mentioned by someone else that he had hung around with.
"If you could maybe not spread it around that I was sent this, I would appreciate it," he told her.
"Your secret is safe with me," she shrugged. "You're sure it wasn't you that ordered it? I haven't seen you with any girls, or boys for that matter?"
He flushed at the insinuation. "No, it is from my Godfather. He's trying to instigate something," he admitted.
"There are plenty of girls here that have shown interest in you."
He cut her off before she could continue. "I'm good," he assured her. "Quidditch and friends. That is my focus."
"I quite like the excitement at the Quidditch matches. Don't care for the game very much though," she dismissed and turned back to her breakfast.
Ron came over and joined them across the table then. "Morning."
"Morning. Where's Hermione?" Harry wondered. Rarely did one of them go somewhere without the other.
"She's out in the hallway. One of the fourth years burst into tears because they were given a detention for something and there's just no calming them down," he told them in exasperation. "You'd think they'd been expelled."
Luna tensed up. "Who was it?" she asked sharply. "Who assigned the detention?"
Ron looked at her in surprise from her tone. "The new DADA professor. What's the big deal? He's just going to be scrubbing cauldrons or something."
"Is it only Hermione that's with them? Is someone else there trying to calm them down?" She didn't wait for Ron to give his response though. She picked up an apple and grabbed her bag, hurrying out to the Entrance Hall.
Ron always had been a bit on the clueless side. Now he was giving Harry wide eyes of bewilderment.
"I don't think detentions here last year were scrubbing cauldrons," Harry explained to him. "I've a feeling it was much, much worse."
"How much worse?" Ron asked. "I've had to go into the Forest for a detention before and got through that no worse for the wear."
"Weren't there Death Eaters as teachers last year though?" Harry pointed out. "Their idea of punishment for kids isn't exactly the same as yours or mine."
Ron frowned at him. "I suppose this is the first detention I've heard of being doled out. But McGonagall and Flitwick wouldn't have let anything really bad happen to the kids."
Harry was sure that was true. McGonagall would have put a stop to anything that would be considered torture. The students must have known they could go to her with any problems.
Would they have though? Snape had been an absolute menace in his detentions before Voldemort's return. The tasks he'd been assigned to do hadn't been bad, but with Snape there railing off about how he was stupid or saying shit about his father, it had made it pretty terrible and Harry hadn't mentioned that to Dumbledore or McGonagall.
If it was to the point of physical torture though, word would have gotten back to those professors.
It must have.
He was pretty sure it would have at least.
Maybe.
Hermione walked into the Great Hall then looking completely frazzled. She sat down beside Ron in a huff. "I don't know where Luna thinks she gets off. She yelled at me to leave Ian Weatherby alone. Actually yelled."
"Luna? Yelling?" Ron asked.
"Yeah, Luna doesn't seem like the yelling type," Harry said. He couldn't even picture it.
"I know!" Hermione's shoulders hunched up to show her own disbelief. "I was just trying to tell him that if he wanted to release a fanged frizbee in the halls then this was the repercussions. And I told him detentions weren't that awful. He'd probably only be given an hour considering it was such a small infraction. You'd think he was getting expelled!"
"Hey, that's what I said!" Ron grinned at her, then his face turned serious again. "I was just talking with Harry about it though. He reckons that detentions here weren't your typical deal last year."
"They can't have been that terrible. The professors wouldn't have allowed for anything awful to happen," she dismissed.
Harry knew that Hermione had a great respect for professors, but it caused her to see right past glaringly obvious faults as well. She had sworn up and down that Lockhart was a good teacher and he'd turned out to be a fraud.
Harry's attention turned to the head table then. Flitwick was there talking to Professor Sinstra to his right and McGonagall was on his left. All the professors looked to be going about their morning as usual including the DADA professor.
Jackson Reid had been an Auror, one that wasn't nearly as crazed as Mad-Eye Moody but was just as old. He had been decent enough of a DADA professor so far but didn't seem to care for children much. He had come out of retirement for this job and did little more in class than demonstrate, correct and write out what essay they were expected to write. Most of the time he would leave them to their own devices and be buried in a book or magazine.
Compared to Alecto Carrow who had been 'teaching' the subject last year, Harry understood that most everyone in his year preferred this approach. Alecto had been very adept in the Dark Arts and she preferred to focus on them, not Defense of them.
After Harry had finished up his breakfast and was leaving the hall, he saw Luna coming down the stairs with a boy that must have been Ian Weatherby. He looked to have recovered from his breakdown and was flanked by two others that looked to be from his year and house; Ravenclaw.
None of them paid him any mind as they passed on the stairs.
He wanted to talk more with Hermione and Ron about what had gone on, but they weren't at that level in their friendship yet.
He was ready for that to change though.
It had been more than a month that they'd been at school together and they were friends. Them being closer than they currently were wouldn't seem that abrupt at this point.
It was time.
He kept going up the stairs and went to one of the windows and thought about the expression that had been on the Weatherby kids face. There was trauma there, he recognized it. Harry leaned his head against the glass and thought once again about the Muggle family he'd seen being abused, then about the Weatherby kid, then the family. The more he thought about it, the harder he pressed his head to the glass.
Would it be so bad if the glass broke?
He saw the little kid being forced to lay on the floor, tears coming from his eyes as his sister tied to rope into a knot with unfeeling eyes.
Who could do such a thing? Force people to hurt other people?
Is that what the detentions were last year?
If it hadn't been the DADA professor giving the detention, would the Weatherby kid have had that little breakdown?
He needed fresh air. Maybe there was a way to get this window open and he could just stand on the ledge of the window on the other side.
If he fell, it was only a few stories up.
It might feel nice to fall through the air like that.
It would be quick too.
There was so much darkness in this world. He wanted to go back to the in between, where his parents had been; where it was bright and people that loved him assured him he had only done what needed to be done.
The sound of other kids coming up the steps and talking loudly to each other had him jerking back from the window pane.
Dangerous thoughts, he reminded himself. That darkness is behind you now, you don't have to see any more of it.
What he did need though was his friends back. He needed his support system. He needed more than two people knowing who he really was.
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That evening Harry sat with Ron and Hermione at dinner and tagged along to the library with them to finish up their essays, observing and waiting for the right time to tell them. He'd seen what happened to people when they were given the key though, it wasn't just the kind of thing that he could blurt out and they would react normally. They needed to be in private for that conversation.
On the way back to Gryffindor, after studying in the library and finishing up some essays, he took his chance. It was nearing curfew, but it was just the three of them there.
"Guys, I need to talk to you. Can we," he looked over to the closest abandoned classroom door, "can we talk in there?"
Hermione and Ron exchanged a look with each other.
"Look, mate," Ron prefaced. "You're an alright bloke and all but getting us together alone in a classroom like this at this time of night is pretty creepy."
"I know," Harry rolled his eyes and sighed. "I can't think of any other way to get the two of you alone though."
"Erm, and why exactly would you need the two of us alone?" Hermione asked cautiously.
He could see that both of them were bracing themselves for Harry to make some sort of odd request of them. He could admit that it seemed weird; him zeroing in on the two of them when he got there and trying to befriend them right away. They were a couple, and he was taking away from their couple time.
"I was in the Order," Harry told them quietly. He hoped that this would be a good starting point for earning their trust so he could follow through with the next part.
"What?!" Ron asked quietly. "I don't remember seeing you at any meetings or hearing about anyone named Harry."
They were still in the hallway, telling them more here wouldn't be a good idea. "Come on," he took them by their elbows and essentially dragged them into the room, closing the door behind them and putting up a silencing and locking spell.
"You wouldn't have remembered me," he shook his head sadly. "The protections around me, even if you saw me face to face, by the time you would have turned around you'd have forgotten I was there."
"That is very powerful magic," Hermione stated.
"Dumbledore was a very powerful wizard," Harry stated back.
They looked shocked by that information. Their former Headmaster wouldn't have performed a spell like that on just anyone, and they all knew this.
"Albus Dumbledore put some kind of forgetting spell on everyone about you?" Ron asked. "Why?"
"I want to explain it to you, but I need to give you some information ahead of time so you can prepare yourselves. Because we have met before. I met the both of you on my first train ride to Hogwarts when I was eleven."
The two of them just stared at him blankly.
"But that's-" Hermione started and then stopped, it was clear that there were a million questions flying through her head that she couldn't quite grasp where to start.
Harry started again before she had time to launch into the first of her many questions. "I went to Hogwarts for four years before this one, I spent the last three years in hiding because of Voldemort. Thankfully, for the last three years, he too couldn't remember who I was."
"What kind of spell was that?" Ron asked incredulously. It looked like he needed more convincing to believe this story.
"You've heard of the Fidelus Charm?" Harry asked. He knew they had because they had known where Grimmauld Place was.
Hermione gasped. "That can be put on a person?!"
"A version of it, yeah. It was a drastic measure, but considering what had just happened, drastic measures needed to be taken. There were only two people who remembered who I was and then I lost one of them right after the last battle."
"Who was the other?" Hermione wondered. "Clearly it was Dumbledore that you lost and if he was the one to place the spell on you then it explains why everyone can remember you now; new memories of you at least. If this is true."
Harry nodded, glad that she had been the one to explain how that worked, more for Ron's benefit. "The other person that had the key was Sirius Black," he answered, hoping that it would convince Ron more of his honesty. Sirius had remained one of the integral members of the Order of the Phoenix and headed up most of the meetings that occurred. Ron had been in attendance for a few of them after he had turned seventeen and brought Hermione with him as well. Harry could still feel the pangs of longing he'd felt when he saw the two of them sitting there in the meeting with their eyes simply passing over him.
"Sirius Black is my Godfather. Together the two of us remained in hiding the last three years and hunted down a few items that we needed in order to bring down Voldemort for good. He couldn't die until we'd done that and after what had happened in my fourth year it made it pretty clear that it wouldn't be safe for me to stay here any longer."
"Fourth year was the Tri-Wizard Tournament," Hermione said absently.
"Yeah, Cedric Diggory won the cup for us," Ron said.
"How much do you remember of his win?" Harry wondered. "After the final task and before it was announced that he'd won the cup?"
"He…" Hermione paused and squinted her eyes in thought. "He didn't come out of the maze. Somehow, he managed to get himself into Hogsmeade. There was something... wrong with the cup." Confusion was written all over her face.
"There were four champions," Harry said. "I was the fourth and the Tri-wizard cup was a Portkey to the spot where Voldemort was going to try to kill me and bring himself back to full power. Luckily Cedric was too fed up with tournament to have us stick around in a church graveyard to find out what was going to happen next."
"Four champions?" Hermione asked incredulously, a smile of disbelief on her face. "And one of them a fourteen-year-old? Impossible." She shook her head.
Harry had been preparing himself for that response. "The DADA teacher that year, Professor Moody, he was an impersonator; a Death Eater that had put my name in under a fourth school. He'd fooled the cup and I was obligated to play."
"This is ridiculous," Hermione scoffed. "Why would You-Know-Who want you anyhow?"
"Yeah, what's so special about you?" Ron asked.
Harry braced himself. He was going to tell them the phrase that would change it all. They'd remember all the horrible adventures they'd shared, but they would remember their friendship as well. He gestured towards the nearest chairs and thankfully they sat down in them without protest.
Once they were safely seated, he told them.
"I am Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived."
Their expressions fell blank immediately, hands fell off their laps and hung limply at their sides.
It was the same with Sirius and McGonagall when he'd told them. It hadn't taken Sirius long to come out of his state but it had taken McGonagall several minutes.
Considering all their shared experiences that they were now having restored to their memories, this comatose state of theirs could last a while.
Harry took a seat in front of them and waited.
And waited.
It felt like forever, but was probably only fifteen minutes before;
"Harry," Hermione said softly as she came back to herself. Her eyes were glassy and her chin was warbling a bit. "Harry, you… you did it!"
"I did what?" he asked cautiously.
She didn't answer though, she just launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around him in a big hug. He let out a sigh of relief and hugged her right back. He buried his face in her hair and relished in the feeling of having his best friend back.
"Mate," Ron whispered when he too came around. "You… you had to… leave?" He got up from his chair and Harry and Hermione stood up too. "You couldn't have come back and gotten us? Even just me?" He sounded hurt.
"Ron, mate, come on. Think about it. You had your whole family to look out for. Sirius and I are orphans. We didn't have any family to look after but each other. It was the easiest way and it worked in the end. It sucked. It really, really sucked. The first time I saw the two of you in a meeting…" he had to stop and take in a deep breath to try and school his emotions that were bubbling to the surface. "It was so hard. But worth it, in the end."
"Why three years?" Hermione asked. "Why couldn't you have kept the Order in the know about you? What were the things that you had to search for with Sirius?"
Harry grinned at her multiple questions. "We should probably sit back down. I've got a lot to tell you."
And he told them everything; about the Tri-wizard portkey and Cedric getting them out of there. About Bartimeus Crouch and Alastor Moody, the modified Fidelus Charm, the Horcruxes, the Death Eaters that Harry and Sirius had wound up packaging up nicely and shipped off to the Aurors, and of the final battle and this past summer and his deciding to return to Hogwarts so that he could be with them again and try to restore some normalcy to his life.
"Sirius was the one to pick it out," Harry pouted when he explained about the key phrase that unlocked their memories of him. "I guess it was a good choice. I've only said it three times and it left a bad taste in my mouth each time."
The three of them let out a chuckle at that. It had been hours now that they had been sitting there talking and catching up.
"Oh goodness!" Hermione exclaimed. "It is really late. We should get back to Gryffindor."
Harry checked his watch and it was half past midnight. Ron and he had Quidditch practice in the morning too.
"We're okay then?" he asked them. "You aren't angry with me?"
"For saving wizardkind?" Hermione scoffed. "Of course not! We're just glad to have you back in our lives!"
"Ron?" Harry asked.
"Mate," Ron clapped him on the back. "I'm a little miffed you didn't take me with you, but I can't be mad at you."
"Thanks," Harry's shoulders relaxed as they continued on their way back to the tower.
Harry couldn't stop grinning. He had his best friends back! He knew if he'd told them on the train that it could have been the three of them thick as thieves like they had been before he'd left, but waiting had been a good decision too. Now he knew that they would have been friends regardless. It would have been a different dynamic because there wouldn't have been the history of life-threatening experiences that bonded them, but they still would have been friends.
Hermione was the first to climb through the portrait hole, followed by Ron, then Harry.
"That is all," the Fat Lady announced before she closed shut.
Harry glanced back at the back of her portrait in confusion.
"Thank you," a voice called out from the couch in front of the dying fireplace.
Harry turned back towards the new voice and saw Ginny there sitting up and wiping the sleep out of her eyes. She wasn't in her pajamas or her school uniform but in jeans and a fitted sweater. She wasn't the only one in the common room. There were two others that were half-asleep on a transfigured mattress by the stairs.
He had completely forgotten that there was a Watch in Gryffindor.
Ginny was glaring at Ron and Hermione, then her eyes focused in on Harry.
"You," she said and rose from her seat heading directly for him, reaching her hand up she pulled out a few of his hairs.
"Ow! Hey!"
"Hey yourself!" she barked back. "I knew where the two of them were, and assumed they were shagging. Didn't imagine it was a three-way. Next time I'll know for sure."
All three of them sputtered in indignation as Ginny went over to a large sheet of parchment spread out on a table and waved her wand around silently until a beam of light shone from her hand holding a piece of Harry's hair to the parchment.
"There, next time I'll know you three are just getting freaky instead of worrying I'd forgotten to add one of the younger students."
"We were NOT having a three-way!" Ron thundered, his face turning purple.
The other two students by the stairs had awoken when the Fat Lady had announced their arrival, seen that Ginny was dealing with it and simply rolled over to go back to sleep. Harry knew that the Watch wasn't really needed and those students must have been doing it out of habit and simply peace of mind for the younger years; their turning over and going back to sleep was proof of that.
Ginny held up her hand to her brother. "I really don't care."
What was really flummoxing Harry was, why had Ginny been waiting up for them? Why was it Ginny's job when there were others ten feet away. Was it because Ron had been one of the ones missing?
"We told you three the FIRST night here to be back by ten. It is coming up on ONE. I was meant to be asleep hours ago. So, tomorrow the three of you get to enjoy the luxury that is an empty classroom for your bedchamber and your names are up on the wall of shame. Have a lovely night." She bit out in dismissal.
"Hey!" Ron called after her, but Ginny wasn't listening, she already started heading up the stairs towards the girls dorm without a backwards glance.
"I forgot," Hermione whispered.
"We aren't taking that seriously? Are we?" Ron asked Hermione, then Harry.
"I'm not completely sure what all happened here last year Ron, but they must have put this in place for a reason," Hermione told him, her voice laced with concern. "We were supposed to set an example for the younger students, now ours will be the first names on that list." She pointed towards the notice board.
Already their three names were plastered in large bold letters across the banner at the top.
"Oh, no," Hermione groaned.
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