Okay, I know it's been a while. First I was distracted by NaNoWriMo, then I went home for the first time in two and a half years, then I was beta reading a novel for a friend of mine, then I was moving, and then aliens tried to kidnap me, and you know how it is. I may have made one of those up.
I'm excited to be getting back into Harry's adventure. This chapter was already partially written before all the hubbub described above, so I had to go back and see exactly what I was doing to avoid a really obvious seam.
Thanks very much to everyone who's been reviewing. I should be replying to them, and I apologize for not doing that. Gotta get back on the ball. Also, many people have offered suggestions as to where this story should go, or how certain elements should be dealt with. While I relish the enthusiasm, rest assured I know exactly what's going to happen and where the story is going, so there's no need to trouble yourselves. =P
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The prospect of actually aiding Voldemort in his resurrection plan kept Harry up for most of the night, to say nothing about his realization regarding his plans for Wormtail. Any lingering anger or resentment he'd still harbored toward Dumbledore evaporated under the weight of the decisions he was being forced to make. He still had time (in the case of Crouch Jr, years), to rethink his strategy, but in some ways that was more of a burden than less. Even knowing that one wrong move could spell disaster, there was a not-small part of him that wanted to just get it over with rather than be forced to stew on whether or not he'd made the right call for months on end while he waited for everything to play out.
Needless to say, his distraction got him into trouble the next morning when he greeted his dorm mates.
'How t-t-t-t-t-t did t-t-t-t-t-t you t-t-t-t-t-t get-t-t-t-t-t-t-t rid t-t-t-t-t-t-t of t-t-t-t-t-t-t it-t-t-t-t-t-t?' Ron demanded furiously. The others were looking at him as well.
'Oh! Er, I...I couldn't sleep well, and...' his brain was scrambling to come up with an explanation that would satisfy them without also giving the answer away. 'I, er, I kept thinking about what we learned from Dumbledore, and I remembered something and thought I'd try it.'
'What was it?' came Dean's high-pitched voice. Strung out as he was, Harry still couldn't help but laugh.
'Oh no, I was up half the night for this,' he lied. 'You lot can figure it out on your own.'
'That's cold, Potter, you dirty rotter,' said Seamus. He then groaned loudly. 'Dean, I mean it, these rhymes are the worst. I feel like I've been doubly cursed! Couldn't you have practiced a little bit first?'
'Ron got me bad, too,' murmured Neville, who'd barely spoken at all through this entire ordeal. 'I keep rhyming with rude words like "poo".'
Harry burst out laughing again.
'It's not funny, Potter!' cried Dean.
'It really is, though!' said Harry, wiping away a tear. If anything else, his awful mood of a few minutes ago had certainly been lifted. There was one thing to be said for being a child again. Then, because the four other boys looked moments away from stringing him up by his heels, he forced himself to calm down. 'Let's go downstairs and see how the girls are doing,' he said. 'If I'm going to give any hints, I should at least give them to everyone.'
This seemed to placate them for the time being, and they got dressed in relative silence, despite Harry's repeated attempts to goad them into conversation.
When they arrived in the common room, the girls were already there, speaking in hushed tones in an out of the way nook, no doubt wishing to avoid the rest of Gryffindor House hearing them. They were just as shocked as the boys had been to learn that Harry had managed to break his curse. Hermione was beside herself with frustration.
'Arrgh!' she cried, tugging at her hair. 'This is driving me mad, see?' she said, showing him the wisps of hair she'd pulled out. 'I've never failed this badly! How could I not have worked this out? It's something stupidly simple, no doubt.'
'Come on, Harry, don't be a tit,' said Seamus. 'You've got to at least help us a bit.'
'I thought Neville was the one jinxed to say rude words,' teased Harry.
'Just give us a hint, you sodding bint!' shouted Seamus, loud enough to attract the attention of some older students. Fortunately they seemed to find his outburst amusing and not worthy of further investigation.
'I'm not sure that's the proper usage of that word,' said Harry, grinning. 'But all right, I'll give you a hint. Hermione's right; it is simple, and Dumbledore did tell us about it.'
'He didn't, though,' Lavender squeaked. 'He never taught us how to break any of these curses.'
'Exactly.'
There was a pause of several seconds while they tried to work out his meaning, and then Hermione clutched her forehead and groaned loudly.
'Oh for heaven's sake, of course!' she said. 'I must be as dumb as a horse. No, worse than that, a horse's bottom. He did say, if you don't know a counter, try finite incantatem.' She waved her wand as she said the spell, and a moment passed.
'Did t-t-t-t-t-t it-t-t-t-t-t-t work?' Parvati asked.
'I think it did,' said Hermione tentatively. After a few seconds of no further talking, she cheered triumphantly.
'I don't get it,' said Dean in his high-pitched voice.
'Don't you remember?' Hermione said. She was clearly reveling in the ability to speak normally again. 'Dumbledore said that even though knowing a specific countercurse is always the best option, it's not always feasible. In a pinch, you can always try finite incantatem, since it will cancel almost any charm or enchantment as long as it's cast powerfully enough relative to the original spell.'
'That's right! I remember!' squeaked Lavender. 'Finite incantatem!' She waved her wand at herself and after a moment, hummed a few notes to see if it had worked. Her voice was back to normal. "I did it!"
Dean followed suit a moment later and succeeded as well.
'Fine t-t-t-t-t-t for t-t-t-t-t-t you t-t-t-t-t-t lot-t-t-t,' chittered Ron. 'But-t-t-t-t-t-t how t-t-t-t-t-t are t-t-t-t-t-t we t-t-t-t-t-t supposed-t-t-t-t-to pronounce t-t-t-t-t-t-t-the spell?' He indicated himself and Parvati.
'And even if we can say the words right,' Neville added nervously, 'it won't work if our spellcasting is shite.' His face went red as a tomato.
'It'll be all right, Neville,' said Harry. 'Professor Overdeck wouldn't have assigned us something he didn't think we could do. Concentrate and give it your best shot.'
'You can do it, Neville!' cheered Lavender.
'Have at it, mate,' said Dean.
'What words should I...oh! Got 'em! Finite incantatem!' He waved his wand with intent and everyone froze, waiting to see if it had worked. There were several seconds of silence.
'Well?' prompted Hermione.
'Oh!' said Neville, jumping slightly. 'I forgot I was supposed to test it!' There was another short pause before everyone realized what had happened, then there were cheers and lots of claps on the back.
'Told you,' said Harry proudly. The feeling reminded him of the D.A., and how much he had enjoyed teaching and encouraging his friends then, too.
'What-t-t-t-t-t-t-t about-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t us?' Parvati said once everyone had calmed back down again.
'Hmm, that is a bit trickier,' said Hermione, putting her finger to her chin in thought. 'McGonagall and Flitwick are always warning us against pronouncing spells wrong, so it seems like there's no way around it, but like Harry said, there has to be, or else Overdeck wouldn't have given it to us in the first place.'
Harry knew the easiest solution would be to just perform the spell non-verbally, but as no first year would be capable of that, it couldn't be the right answer. He had another idea that he wasn't entirely certain of, which meant he wouldn't simply be giving them an answer if he voiced it. Still, he wanted to see if anyone else came up with it first.
Seamus was all for just trying it and seeing what happened, but changed his mind when Ron suggested testing on him first.
'What if you just...stopped moving your wand while you're chittering?' mused Lavender. Harry raised his eyebrows. He'd been ready to suggest saying the spell first, chitters and all, and saving the wand movement for afterwards. This, however, was a novel idea, and while he wasn't certain it would work, he wasn't sure it wouldn't, either.
'It's worth trying,' he said, shrugging. Ron mirrored the gesture and readied his wand, pointing it at himself.
'Finite-t-t-t-t,' he paused and held his wand perfectly still until he was able to speak again, 'incantatem.' He finished the wand movement, and there was the barest instant of suspense while everyone waited to see if he would end up with a buffalo on his chest. A moment later, he took a breath and said, 'Did it work?'
The other first years jumped and celebrated, and Harry was surprised to catch himself letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. Parvati was quick to repeat exactly what Ron had done, and by the time they headed down to breakfast, all eight first year Gryffindors were speaking entirely normally.
Their accomplishment, they discovered later that day, was less than well received by the first years from the other houses. The Hufflepuffs and Slytherins were furious that they were still under the influence of the embarrassing set of jinxes, and the Ravenclaws were annoyed that they weren't the only ones to have figured out the solution so quickly.
'How did you all do it so fast?' Stephen Cornfoot was hassling them in the library on Wednesday afternoon. It was their last chess tournament before the Easter holidays. 'We were sure we'd be the only ones who'd gotten it on the first day.'
'It was Hermione, I'll wager,' said Natalie Moon. She was sitting back and watching while Stephen and Ron set up the boards. 'The whole lot of them are riding her cloak hem.'
'It was Harry, actually,' said Hermione. 'I was just as flummoxed as everyone else.'
'Really?' asked Natalie, looking back and forth between Hermione and Harry, surprised.
'You'd have gotten it if you'd been thinking straight,' Harry said.
'That's just it though, isn't it?' said Hermione. 'Out of all of us, you were the only one who stayed calm the entire time.' Her eyes went wide as if she'd just realized something. 'Oh! I bet that was the whole point of the assignment!'
Harry tried to hide his grin. Ron looked over from the chess board. 'You reckon?' he said. 'Mind, that would make sense. You wouldn't want to lose your head in a real crisis. Even if you knew what to do, you might not think of it.'
'Yes, exactly,' said Hermione. 'Any one of us could have remembered what Dumbledore had told us if we'd been thinking properly, but while we were all panicking, Harry just thought the whole thing was funny.'
'To be fair, it was,' put in Harry. 'But you're probably right. Better to learn this lesson now than say, when you're being strangled by devil's snare or something.'
'Oh, that would be scary,' said Hermione, her hands going to her cheeks. 'Yes, I'd much rather be forced to speak in rhyme, thank you.'
Stephen and Natalie were looking at each other and chuckling.
'What?' Ron demanded.
'Oh, it's nothing,' said Stephen, turning his attention back to the chessboard and prodding a pawn with his wand to make his opening move. 'You lot have just stumbled on to something every Ravenclaw knows from day one and you're acting like you've discovered an amazing secret or something, that's all.'
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When they returned to Defense Against the Dark Arts on Thursday, it was well known that they had completed their assignment. But, true to his word, Professor Overdeck jinxed them all again himself to see if they could remove it. Many of the students found his curses more difficult to remove than the ones they'd cast on each other. Only Harry and Hermione were able to manage it on their first try.
'Well done, you two!' Overdeck said to them, awarding them five points apiece. Then he turned to the rest of the class and said jauntily, 'I see you're all realizing that a spell cast by a fully trained wizard can be a little hahda to lift than one cast by a beginnah. With time and practice, you'll be able to manage it much easiah.'
All around the room, students were shouting 'FINITE INCANTATEM!' in high-pitched, squeaky voices, or trying to time their wand movements with when they could speak properly, or rhyming the incantation with things like 'autumn', 'bethought him', and 'Seringapatam'. Of course Overdeck had not hexed any of them with the same curse they'd had before. Ron was bitterly disappointed that Hermione and Harry had broken theirs so quickly; he'd been looking forward to watching them chitter for a while.
'Couldn't you have at least given it a minute?' he asked grumpily. 'I mean, after all, it's only fair, innit?' He paused for a moment, then seemed to realize what he'd just said. He swore under his breath, followed by, 'I was so sure I'd got it right.'
'RON!' Cried Hermione, scandalized, whipping her head around in panic to see if Professor Overdeck had heard. Fortunately, he was assessing Parvati and Lavender's spellwork on the other side of the room. Harry, meanwhile, was attempting (and failing) to conceal his laughter. Ron scowled at him.
'Look who's so merry; think it's funny, Harry?"
'Very.'
Even Hermione couldn't suppress her smile now. She seemed to take pity on Ron.
'Have you tried saying the spell first?' she asked. Ron arched an eyebrow questioningly.
'Well, I mean,' she explained, 'most of what you've been saying has been in the form of rhyming couplets. It was the same with me. But as far as I can tell, there's nothing forcing you to say the spell in the second line. If you say it first, the spell will be broken and you won't have to worry about the second line. I can't believe I didn't think of it before.'
Harry was sure Ron didn't know what a couplet was, but he seemed to understand Hermione's suggestion at the very least.
'Right, let's try it. Finite incantatem!' he waved his wand. There was a pause. Then Harry said, 'Useful thing you taught him.' Ron jumped, before then realized he hadn't been the one to speak.
'Harry, you git!' he shouted, but he was grinning now. 'I thought I'd messed it up again!'
Hermione was shaking her head, smiling. 'I don't know what I'm going to do with you two,' she said. 'But at least it worked. I wasn't sure.'
'That was a really good idea, Hermione,' Harry told her. It was one he hadn't thought of himself.
'Well, I reasoned the worst that could happen would be that it wouldn't work, and he'd just end up saying "bottom" again or something.'
At this point, Overdeck was beckoning for their attention from the front of the room. Apparently everyone had been successful in removing their jinxes.
'Good job everyone!' he called. 'Now, who can tell me what the point of this assignment was?'
Hermione's hand shot into the air, but it was Dean Thomas that Overdeck called on. 'Wasn't it to learn how to lift jinxes, sir?'
'Well yes, that was paht of it,' said Overdeck, chuckling. 'But there's something much biggah that I hope you all learned from this.'
Hermione's hand went up again, and this time he did call on her.
'You were trying to teach us we need to stay calm in a crisis,' she said confidently. 'That's why you made us go for three days with the most embarrassing hexes you could think of.'
'Absolutely right,' said Overdeck. 'Heah at school we can prepeah you for all kinds of trouble. But no mattah what you've prepeahed foah, you'll nevah be able to deal with it propahly if you ahn't thinking straight. I hope this little demonstration showed you just how much of a difference that can make. I assume Mr. Pottah over theah was the first of you to work this out?'
All heads turned to Harry, who was taken a little off-guard. He hadn't expected to be put on the spot. At that moment, he felt more like a student again than at any time since his "return" to Hogwarts.
'Erm, yes, sir,' he said.
'Thought as much,' said Overdeck. 'Mind sharing your secret?'
Harry shrugged. 'I guess I just thought it was funny,' he said honestly. 'Plus, I've been in a few uh...situations...where panicking wouldn't have helped.'
'Experience,' Overdeck said, nodding. 'A great teachah. Fah bettah than me. And now you've all had a taste of it yourselves. I hope you remembah it if you're evah faced with a real crisis.'
There were a few moments of silence as everyone let that sink in, and then he clapped his hands loudly. 'Now! We haven't got much time left, and I know your holidays staht this weekend. For the rest of class, why don't we just practice a bit moah? Try out a few moah jinxes on each othah and then remove them using Finite Incantatem. Nothing hahmful; just playground jinxes like jelly legs and tarantellegra. I'll let you know when it's time ta pack up.'
They all thoroughly enjoyed themselves for the remainder of the class (though they were careful to make sure all the hexes had been lifted well before the bell rang, just in case). Harry found the most difficult thing for him was to suppress the instinct to block all the spells people were casting at him. As he had proven to have no difficulty removing them, everyone wanted to be the first to pull one over on him. It was rather exhausting. He was relieved when the class finally ended, and Overdeck wished them a cheerful vacation, promising they'd be working twice as hard on specific countercurses when they got back.
'He could have done without assigning us that essay,' Ron complained as they made their way to lunch. 'I mean, why ruin such a fun lesson with homework?'
'Oh come on, Ron, it's not very much,' Hermione said. 'Only a foot and a half? I bet McGonagall gives us twice that much.
They were indeed inundated with work from not just McGonagall, but all their teachers - Defense Against the Dark Arts turned out to be their lightest assignment - such that if Harry truly had been eleven, he would have felt nearly overwhelmed. He could only imagine how Ron must have felt. Hermione, of course, was in her element and not bothered at all.
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It was with anticipation bordering on nervous breakdown that Harry boarded the train on Saturday morning with Ron, Fred, and George. Percy had opted to remain at school for what he referred to as "optimal quiet studying time" for his O.W.L.s. Hermione made no secret of the fact that she agreed with him and thought Ron and Harry were being awfully irresponsible by taking a week off so close to the end of the year. Harry assured her he wouldn't fall behind (Ron asserted he simply didn't care), but it was still with a slightly disapproving look that she bade farewell to them in the entrance hall.
'Does she really think taking a week's holiday is going to affect our exam scores that much?' Ron was still grumbling half an hour later as he hefted his trunk onto the rack in the compartment the four boys had found for themselves. The twins' friend Lee Jordan wasn't going home either, so they sat with Ron and Harry.
'I expect she does,' Harry said, lifting his trunk after Ron's. He had far less difficulty, as he'd surreptitiously cast a mild feather-weight charm on it earlier. It didn't hurt that it was only his clothes and broomstick in there either; he certainly wouldn't be needing any of his schoolbooks. He didn't even need them at school other than to keep up appearances.
'Though more likely she thinks we're not going to do any of our homework,' he added.
'Homework on holiday!' Ron cried, throwing up his hands in frustration. 'Mad!'
'Best not to worry about it, I say,' said Fred, who'd already taken a seat by the window. 'This is the first time Mum's ever let us come home for Easter hols; it'd be a waste not to take full advantage of it.'
'Remember to bring your broomstick, Harry?' George asked as the rest of them sat. He'd taken the other window seat, so Harry and Ron sat facing each other.
'Of course,' he replied, grinning. It was lucky the other three had been talking up a week's worth of Quidditch so much; the excitement he felt and was unable to conceal over finally seeing Ginny (and the Burrow) could be attributed to that.
'Are we really going to let Ginny play?' Ron asked again.
'We might as well, if she really wants to,' said Fred, shrugging. 'It beats having her whinge at us about it all week, don't you think?'
'Besides, she's more likely to just want to watch, with Harry there,' said George. Harry's cheeks hurt from the strain of suppressing his grin.
'What if she's rubbish?' asks Ron.
'Then she'll either get bored and stop playing, or we'll teach her, same as you,' said Fred. Ron's ears went pink.
'I was never that bad,' he said sulkily.
'It's true, I've seen worse,' said George. 'But you weren't exactly brilliant, either.'
'To be fair, nobody's any good when they first start,' said Fred, being rather surprisingly diplomatic.
'Except Harry, for some reason,' replied George, clapping Harry on the shoulder.
'Yeah, dunno what that's about,' agreed Fred, nodding. 'It's unnatural, really. You'd think he'd already been playing his whole life or something.'
'I think the Dursleys might have noticed,' he joked, while laughing inwardly at the half-truth of Fred's statement.
'Not to mention the other Muggles who live around there,' added Ron, his good humor returned. 'Might've made an interesting story in the paper, though.'
They passed the time playing exploding snap and eating through the pile of sweets Harry had purchased from the trolley witch. One advantage of being young again was that he didn't have to feel guilty about eating so much junk.
He made sure to ask lots of questions about the Burrow, and the village of Ottery St. Catchpole. Far more than just playing his role, it could help cover his tracks later if he appeared to be more familiar with everything than he should be.
Finally, after what surely had to have been the longest train ride of Harry's entire existence, they began pulling into King's Cross Station. Harry thought his heart might burst from the anticipation, and then everything else along with it. It seemed every muscle in his body, from his toes to his eyeballs, was seconds away from seizing up.
He couldn't speak as they unloaded their trunks from the racks and pulled them out of the compartment. Walking across the platform, he felt like he was holding his breath in freezing water. He scanned around with his eyes, aware that he shouldn't know who to look for but unable to bring himself to care.
'Ah! There they are!' said George, causing Harry to jump practically out of his skin. He turned and looked where George was pointing, and sure enough, there was Mr Weasley waving cheerily at them, and at his side…
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. To Harry's eyes, she was radiating light and warmth like a patronus, only not silver but gold. The breath he had been holding came out shakily through his nose, and the tension that had been building in his muscles melted away like wax under a fire. It wasn't just from the last few days' anticipation, either, but all the stress and exhaustion from his entire year so far. She was waving too, for all the world like an overexcited young girl, but the look on her face reminded Harry of so many things: their first kiss, their first night together, the night he proposed…
He longed to run to her. To touch her. Hold her. Be near her. Look at her. But he couldn't afford to. Not yet. Not just yet.
Not really focusing on anything other than her face, he allowed himself to be steered by Ron and the twins over to where Ginny and Mr Weasley were waiting.
'You must be Harry,' said Mr Weasley jovially, putting out his hand. Still in something of a daze, Harry grasped it and shook it. 'This is Ginny,' he said, indicating his daughter. 'No doubt the boys have told you about her.'
'A bit,' Harry heard himself answer, turning to face her.
Ginny waved confidently again, smiling that brilliant smile. 'Hi.'
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I really don't like how short this chapter is. In principle, anyway. But I've been sitting on it for so long, I just wanted to get it out there. That, and I had a whole other page and a half written before I realized that I'd breezed right past the perfect ending point. But hey, glass half full, the next chapter's already well underway.
Sorry again this one took so long. Maybe now I can finally get back in the swing of things.
As always, thanks in advance to those who leave reviews. I'm going to make an effort to start replying to them again. Until next time!