I certainly have no rights to Harry Potter, but this won't stop me writing this story. However, you probably already know this. As it is my specialty, and as in my other big stories, this shows how things go if something went different right at the beginning. Please note that I'm not a fan of bashing and also don't expect the two main pairings to differ from canon. However, the path to them certainly will be quite different. I also want to try and subvert certain plots and things that became common in the fandom over the years.

Please note that due to the constant technical troubles of the site, the story is now also being published at AO3. The story will update every second Saturday until the year is done.

I'll try to answer all my reviews, since I do like the feedback for improvement. So please tell me your thoughts on the story in reviews. I would appreciate it. The more feedback I get, the more I can improve the story even further.

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Chapter 73: The Half-Blood Prince

"Take a look at that!" Neville said at the morning when looking at the black board in the Gryffindor common room before they all would go down to breakfast for the first day of lessons in the year 1997.

Thy did so. "Apparition lessons? I've heard of this before but this is the first time I could attend those lessons," Hermione said, looking eager to learn something new. "I've seen it being used numerous times; it does sound highly useful. But twelve Galleons sounds quite expensive."

"Trust me, it's worth every single Knut. You should have seen how annoying Fred and George were after getting their licenses. Hell, even Percy was smug about getting his own," Ron explained to them.

"All Wesleys can do it?" Hermione wondered, knowing how in the past money had been tight in the family.

"Well, yes, though Mum hates doing so, saying she never got fully used to it. I know Charlie bungled his first test, landing on an old lady and causing quite a scene." Ron then looked at the announcement. "However, they clearly have changed the rules. Only those who are seventeen by February 1st can attend."

"It used to be different?" Harry asked, having little idea about the procedure in the past.

"Well, our older brothers did start the lessons while they were still sixteen, you only had to be seventeen for the licensing test," Ginny explained, taking a closer look at the text. "Guess they no longer want to risk getting sued by angry parents if something goes wrong."

"Goes wrong?" Hermione asked, not having read much about apparition.

"Oh, she means that people can accidentally splinch themselves when they do it wrong. Part of their body then does not make the journey and stays behind," Luna explained, then saw how sick the others looked. "Yes, that indeed can be very dangerous and is why many don't learn apparition. That is common knowledge."

"I think I'm gonna be sick..." Neville whispered, his imagination having conjured quite the bloodbath.

"I have to write to my parents for the money, but I really want to take those lessons," Hermione decided, seeing the usefulness of being able to teleport.

"Feel free to do so. Too bad none of us can do so. My birthday is only a month after the cutoff date." Though Ron didn't show it, he was a bit disappointed.

They then made their way down to the great hall.

Arriving, they sat down, but quickly noticed something. "Eh, Harry, a number of students are giving you weird looks," Ginny realized after a look around.

Harry did notice several students giving him strange looks or pointing at him. He rolled his eyes, feeling reminded of the stupid attention he got way back at the start of his first year. "What's new? Though, it's a bit weird and I wonder what now has happened for them to give me that much attention."

Over at the Slytherin table, Dudley was in sort of the same predicament.

"Honestly, Dudley, what the hell have you done that other students are constantly giving you looks, not to speak of all the whispering?" Daphne wondered, being honestly puzzled by this behavior.

"Beats me. It started as soon as we entered, remember?" Dudley looked annoyed at the unwanted attention he was getting. "I wonder what their problem is?"

Daphne looked at various students, until she started to notice a common thing. "Now, that's interesting. This does seem to originate from several students looking up from newspapers. Those students all look surprised."

"Oh, really?" Looking around, Millicent spotted one such student at the Slytherin table. Wordlessly, she got up and walked over to her. "You mind if we borrow that?" she asked the student in a very nice voice, which nonetheless was not a question.

"Ah!" The girl was a bit startled. "No... Here, take it!"

Millicent then returned to her seat. "They are reading the Daily Prophet," she told Dudley and Daphne.

"That toilet paper?" Daphne wondered. The Prophet had fallen far after the ousting of Fudge and nowadays was regarded as a joke. "I wonder why some people are still reading that rubbish."

"Not everyone has good taste..." Dudley accepted the newspaper from Millicent and then flipped through it, hoping to find the reason for students acting so strange. He didn't have to look for long. "What the...?!"

The girls did look at the article in question as well and their eyes widened. "Oh shit..." Daphne wasn't one to curse often, so it meant she knew how bad what she was seeing truly was.

"I need to show that to Harry..." Not waiting for the girls to react, Dudley took the sheet with the article in question and walked over to the Gryffindor table.

"Ah, Big D. What is...?" Harry started, but was unable to finish when Dudley slapped the offending article in question onto the table.

Dudley gave him a very serious look. "Better read this."

Harry did exactly that and his eyes widened when realizing it was an article about 'The unknown cousin to the Boy-Who-Lived'. The article in question held more details than any of them would have liked, and that included names and a research about the family tree as well as some speculation - some of it being pure drivel.

Having read this, Harry cursed loudly. "Shit! Damn! How did this happen?!"

"Beats me, but I have a feeling it will get way worse than what I'm getting right now," Dudley said, trying to control his anger. "Someone must have talked..."

Their discussion was interrupted when McGonagall and Slughorn walked over to them, looking alarmed as well. "I see both of you have already discovered the offending article in question," McGonagall said, seeing that she wouldn't have to waste time to explain.

"Yes. Man, that will be a nightmare," Dudley sighed, not looking forward to that.

"It sadly will be worse than just being annoying, Mr. Dursley," Slughorn informed him, looking alarmed for his student's safety. "It also will pose a serious security risk."

"Wait a minute..." That was Ron, who seemed to understand. "If that got published... HE does also know now."

Everyone understood perfectly well who was meant and Dudley suddenly had a very bad feeling.


...later that day, office of the Headmaster...

The meeting in the office of the Headmaster was tense, which was no wonder considering what had been published. After many years of keeping the whole thing silent, the familial connection between Dudley and Harry had been screamed out into the world, which was bound to do significant damage to Dudley's life at Hogwarts and in Magical Britain.

That mood also was reflected in the mood of the adults that were present for said meeting.

Petunia would never have imagined she would actually see the fabled Hogwarts from the inside one day, though sadly the reason for her visit was not a good one. Veronica and Thomas were present as well, but interestingly enough, not Sirius, even though he got the news as well. Harry, who was present together with Dudley, noticed his absence and did ask.

"Your observational skills are good, Harry. I did inform Sirius of what happened, and he vowed to let heads roll at the Daily Prophet, that is why he is not gracing us with his presence," Dumbledore explained to Harry.

"Not that we need him for this..." Snape said under his breath, being one of three teachers present; the others being McGonagall and Slughorn.

Dudley for his part observed the hard look Petunia gave Snape. I know that look. When Mum got that look, she really means it. I honestly wonder what happened between them to cause that?

Petunia for her part didn't care about what Sirius was doing and looked Dumbledore straight into the eyes. "How did this happen? Why are private details from my son's life circulating in the media?"

It had been explained to her how the relation between Harry and Dudley had been made public, after both boys had kept it secret for years, and how that would cause its share of problems. Needless to say, Petunia was not impressed. After things had fallen apart with Vernon, she was giving even more attention to her son and thus reacted badly to someone stepping onto his feet intentionally.

"That is a question we wondered ourselves," Dumbledore admitted.

"I agree with her. Something like that doesn't happen out of nowhere," Veronica added, feeling a bit weird that she was agreeing with Petunia.

Slughorn knew it was him who should answer that question. "We are honestly a bit puzzled about that ourselves. As much as we can put together, someone must have overheard them talking and had enough of a grudge to give that information to the press."

"There was a good reason why Harry and me decided to keep that quiet..." Dudley knew the consequences of that becoming public.

"I can only imagine the number of people who'll now try to get into your good favors in the hope that could give them your cousin's attention." Petunia knew that kind of people too well... after all, she had played that game herself during her marriage with Vernon.

"We wish it were only that," Thomas said with a sigh. "But that is only the smaller worry. This actually puts your son into real danger... and you as well."

That sudden change in direction unsettled Petunia. "How do you mean?"

It was Harry, who answered that question. "There is a psychopath after me who had no problem with murdering my parents to reach me and who right now is waging a terrorist war. If he didn't know about Dudley's connection to me before - and knowing him he was very likely too arrogant to even bother to look - he now knows for sure."

Dudley saw the expression his mother was sporting. "Mum...I..."

"No, it's not your fault." Petunia had a good idea what those news would entail. "That means both of us are in danger now."

"Yes, but not right now," Thomas explained to her. "There is a protective spell on Harry that keeps them out of most of Little Whinging, but sadly that will expire on his seventeenth birthday in a little less than seven months."

"I am already making preparations for that. I do know it means we have to be moved away for our own safety." Petunia said, having accepted that the Bulstrode family would give her protection until all of this was over.

"Sadly, an inevitable fact," Dumbledore told her. "Lord Voldemort would not hesitate to use that knowledge to hurt Harry by proxy."

The meeting went on for some time longer. In the end Petunia did agree that for her own safety, she had to move to a safe place before the protection would expire and she would become vulnerable. The Evans actually knew how bad it felt to get uprooted like that, since they had to move as well as Voldemort would surely try to harm them by that point.

Once the meeting was over, it was Snape of all people who was escorting her back home.

There was a tense silence between them, before Snape broke it. "This is not how I imagined us meeting again. I had honestly expected you to still ride on your self-righteous high horse. Still disappointed at what you can never have?" Even though he appeared calm, his voice was full of old bitterness.

"No, you won't get to play that game. With you it never was about magic - it was something different right from the start." The look she gave him was one of great dislike.

"And what was it about then?" Snape asked, his voice biting.

"With you it was that obsession over Lily you developed right from the very first day you met her." Petunia did remember the very first meeting all too well. "Even though I broke off contact, she still tried to reach out and I did hear enough from her to know where you ended up. You couldn't accept you never had a chance with her and thought you could force it."

Snape stopped. "Never a chance...?"

"She only saw you as a friend, and that didn't change when she grew older. You on the other hand wanted to monopolize her for yourself, and that is when I saw your true nature. You thought that the terrible life you've had did entitle you to have everything you desire, regardless if it's rightfully yours, or not." Petunia was not afraid at all to tell him that.

Snape wanted to be angry, but he honestly couldn't deny Petunia's observation.

He had only managed to gather himself when walking back into the office of the Headmaster, seeing that McGonagall was present as well, but not Slughorn. "All right, now that we are alone... Severus, we know exactly who the prime suspects for this development are," McGonagall said.

"Yes... The sheer pettiness of it points straight to them." Snape said, not liking the implications. "I never told the Dark Lord of the connection between Potter and Dursley and the Dark Lord honestly felt it beneath himself to dig in the past of what he considers a 'mudblood'. Now however he is bound to know for sure."

"Could that result in awkward questions for you?" Dumbledore wondered.

"Once he asks me, I will tell that I thought the whole thing to be beneath his notice and of no consequence. He will easily accept that reasoning," Snape explained. "I'm more concerned with how that information left the castle."

That was a question McGonagall was pondering as well. "They never left the Hogwarts grounds, had no access to owls and are locked out of the fireplaces. We also know that unlike Harry they don't have something like a communication mirror and never learned how to conjure a Patronus, nor did we observe one. It leaves the question of how they managed to get that information out of the castle."

"And not only that, they are also utterly secretive how they got their items into the castle." Snape thought about it for a moment. "Could those brats be using a house-elf?"

"A good idea, but no. After the whole debacle with Dobby, I worked together with the elves of Hogwarts to ensure that should a foreign elf enter the grounds by teleporting in or passing the boundary, an alarm would be set off right away," Dumbledore explained the security measures.

"Then we are back at square one..." Snape than held his arm when he felt something. "I'm being called. That means I lose the entire day of classes."

He hoped it would go as expected, since otherwise it would become stressful.


...January 16th, Defense class...

Harry was not exactly in the best of moods when the Defense lessons started, and the reason for that was easy to guess. Ever since the connection between himself and Dudley was made public - and they knew exactly who they had to thank for that - there had been several students trying to suck up to Dudley in order to get into Harry's good graces as well as some approaching Harry directly.

It was actually less annoying for Harry and worse for Dudley. Up until that point he just had been a random student who just happened to be friends with Harry. But now a good portion of the student body treated him different and Dudley was getting highly annoyed by it. Of course that was peanuts compared to the fact that his life now was in serious danger. Voldemort after all surely would use that knowledge to his advantage.

Dudley however was not in this Defense class, since due to so many students passing, there still were two classes for the subject in this year.

His friends could see right away that Harry was in no mood to speak about that newest complication in the lives of his cousin and himself, so they decided to divert the topic somewhere else. "You think Professor Snape will continue to make us practice non-verbal casting?" Hermione wondered.

"Knowing the hard-ass he is, that is a sure bet. Yeeez, some of the others look like they've been holding their breath for too long while attempting it," Ron said, vividly remembering the previous Defense class.

"If I recall correctly, we did not look much better, Ronald," Luna reminded him. "According to Neville, I tried so hard I resembled a tomato in color. Granted, it would have been quite a sight had I accidentally turned myself into a tomato."

"Luna, this is not Transfiguration. Though I also remember you saying that Ginny looked like she desperately needed to go to the bathroom," Neville reminded his girlfriend.

"Ha ha, very funny." Ginny felt that Luna was rubbing off on Neville, but it didn't mean she had to like some of the less flattering comparisons he was starting to use. "But honestly, this whole non-verbal thing is really hard, though I do see the benefits."

"At least Flitwick and McGonagall are less brute force about the non-verbal thing," Ron said, reminding everyone that those two subjects would also soon have non-verbal spells. "I mean, they at least are giving us time in advance to train it and some reading material how to do it."

"That's Snape for you. His method of teaching someone how to swim probably would be to throw them into the lake and then see if they drown or not." It seemed Ginny was not a fan of Snape's teaching methods in this case.

They were unable to continue when Snape entered, everyone falling silent since they knew Snape wanted discipline in the classroom.

After checking that everyone was present, Snape addressed the class. "I will make it short, so that neither of our time is wasted. We will continue our training for casting spells non-verbally. I sincerely hope you double your efforts, since what I witnessed in the previous class was not impressive."

The class winced, knowing Snape's high standards when it came to Defense, though they also admitted that he was an expert in it.

Snape then added "I am not like Professors McGonagall and Flitwick. They do believe in the soft approach while I do believe that hard work right from the start will get better results. Every since I've started teaching sixth year in Defense I always managed that my students learned to cast non-verbally first. I sincerely hope your class won't break my streak."

Everyone understood perfectly fine that for Snape it also was a matter of ego and he would not be pleased if they took too long to get results.

Yeah, no pressure there, Harry thought with biting sarcasm.

Class went by quite fast with everyone working their ass off to finally get how to cast non-verbally, though tangible results of course were still few and far between, considering they had only started recently with their training.

"If anything, this was worse than last time, though at least we are making progress," Harry said while they left the classroom and slowly made their way to the dorms so that they could dump their things for the upcoming lunch break.

"You would say that Harry. You made the most progress out of all of us since you are a prodigy in Defense," Hermione said.

"You sound a little jealous, Hermione," Luna observed. "You seem to dislike a skill that only can be learned with practical use instead of reading up on it?"

"Yes..." Hermione admitted, not being too proud to admit her failings. "It's highly frustrating, since I do work better with things that have a theoretical part. Non-verbal spellcasting on the other hand is pure training."

"You tried to force it too hard, which only resulted in you looking like you were only seconds away from having a highly embarrassing accident." Luna then endured the annoyed look Hermione gave her. "Non-verbal casting is forcing us to hold down a fundamental instinct; casting spells meaning one has to use an incantation."

"I'm honestly a bit surprised you have difficulties with that," Ron said. "Considering the strange ways your mind works, I would have expected that to be right up your alley."

"Contrary to popular belief, I do function like most other human beings and also need to overcome trained reflexes from five years in Hogwarts." Luna didn't seem annoyed by the question.

They went around a corner and barely managed to stop before they would walk straight through Myrtle. The ghost girl in question also stopped herself, having learned years ago how rude it is to just phase through people. However, one look at her and they knew something had to be wrong, since Myrtle looked very upset and as if she had cried recently.

"Myrtle? Is something wrong?" Ginny was unsettled with how upset Myrtle looked.

"Yes, everything is wrong!" Myrtle wailed, before she tried to calm down a bit. "My toilet. My beautiful toilet has been vandalized!"

They looked at each other for a moment, knowing that Myrtle held great sentimental value on the very toilet in which's stall she had been killed. "What exactly happened?" Harry asked, knowing that they shouldn't make Myrtle more upset.

"I don't know! I was having a nice talk with the Grey Lady and when I returned to have a little rest inside my toilet, I found it smashed to pieces! Who would do something that mean?!"

"That is the question. It is not like the students dislike you, so it does create the question what the motive could be." Luna actually was puzzled at who would want to destroy Myrtle's toilet of all things.

"Eh, can it be fixed?" Ron felt uncomfortable with the whole topic, but knew Hermione would pull his ears off, should he upset Myrtle even more than she already was.

"I'm going to the Headmaster. Hopefully he can repair my toilet..." It looked like Myrtle was praying he could do so while making haste to reach Dumbledore.

Looking after her, Ron scratched his head. "Guys, who would do something like that? It's so incredibly stupid and petty, I can't fathom what that even could be about."

Meanwhile, Pansy Parkinson looked pleased with herself while being escorted to the great hall for lunch together with Draco.

She knew it was petty, but she had been in dire need to let off some steam to combat her mounting stress, so when Moody was called into the Headmaster's office for something, she had used the chance to slip under her invisibility cloak while holding a big hammer from the tool shed, made her way to Myrtle's bathroom and after making sure that pest was not present, had smashed her toilet to pieces, before leaving again.

That had felt really good, since Pansy had never forgiven Myrtle for the highly disgusting bathroom cleaning way back in her first year, which had given her a lasting phobia of toilet seats she hadn't wiped off herself before usage. It had felt therapeutic to smash that damn toilet to pieces and she only was disappointed she was unable to see that ghost's face at discovering the wreckage.

As said, petty but highly satisfying.


...January 19th, the Room of Hidden Things...

Another weekend had arrived and the Six had returned this Sunday to an activity they had been doing for several months by that point; digging through the mountains of items in the Room of Hidden Things in order to set aside things they could ask the teachers about keeping once they reported the room properly. They had found quite a number of useful things by now - things that were not too valuable - and the pile was growing.

For Harry, this also was a welcome distraction of how annoying the week had been, though that of course was nothing compared to Dudley's bad time. His cousin had been forced to endure a number of students trying to suck up to him in the hopes that it would gain them Harry's favor. Dudley for his part was using the weekend to hide away from the student population. No one could blame him for doing so.

"Well, there is useful stuff in here, but I still wonder if they'll allow us to keep it," Harry wondered while looking at the pile of useful things they had found up until now.

"Mate, do you honestly think they can find the owners? Also, if we ask nicely, and since we discovered it, we should be allowed to get at least something out of it," Ron reminded Harry.

"Let's hope so, I would hate for all this work to be futile..." Harry then searched through the next pile of papers, until he discovered something. "Hey, guys, take a look at this!"

They took a look at the parchments Harry was holding in his hands. The handwriting was tight and made it from afar look as if the parchment was a solid black. Hermione - used to her own small handwriting - had no trouble to read it. "Those are potion instructions... Exactly the ones we'll have in this year. It proclaims that these notes were written by... the Half-Blood Prince?"

Ginny arched an eyebrow when hearing that. "I honestly wouldn't know what kind of person would lord around such a blood-status by claiming to by royalty. After all, they are dime a dozen and not something you boast about."

"I know, but reading this..." Harry found the potion that Snape had announced they would do next week. That Prince person had done a good job to actually describe the reasoning behind each step and how that would be more efficient. "Oh, there at the bottom is a scrawled note that the Prince decided to discard those notes and from now on would only write into the Potions book."

"Writing into the book?!" Hermione looked horrified at the idea. She then saw Harry roll up the notes and pocket them. "Harry, what are you doing?"

"I'll keep those and see how good they are. No one will mind me using some discarded notes." He then saw the scandalized look Hermione gave him. "Hey, we normally read recipes from a book, so I see nothing wrong with getting a leg up."

Hermione knew she could not stop her friend from doing so. "But don't complain once Professor Snape catches you."

They then returned to their search through the piles of items. The problem was all the real junk that made it difficult to find those items that were good or useful. They honestly wondered why the elves had not thrown that stuff away and knew they had to bring that up with the teachers once they reported this place. This place would be an excellent storehouse for the school and they guessed it worked the same way as one of those bags that were bigger on the inside.

Luna for her part loved this place, since at every corner she could find things that interested her. For someone who loved the esoteric, this place was a real gold mine. True, it was a bit sad that she probably could only have a few - if any - of these things, but the sheer joy of discovering them in the first place already a great reward for her.

While actually having those things would be great, the others are not appreciating enough that often the journey is already a great reward, Luna thought while looking around the piles of items, always finding something new that aroused her interest.

After a collage made from empty butterbeer bottles, a rub-me-much wishing stump (which looked suspiciously much like a penis) and a guide for the unseen creatures, she spotted something new that aroused her interest.

"Oooh! That must be a really famous person," Luna said when seeing the stone bust of an old man sitting atop of a fallen-over cupboard. Funny enough, the bust also was wearing an old wig and some sort of a crown.

Luna however stopped and then took a closer look at the 'crown'. "Strange... I could have sworn I have seen that before. But where?" She walked a bit closer and then gasped when she remembered where she had seen that item before. "COME HERE! COME HERE!" she called, being unusually loud for once.

Alarmed by the shouting, her friends ran to her. "Luna! Luna, is something wrong?!" Neville asked, sounding very worried.

"Nothing is wrong, but look there, on top of the bust!" Luna pointed at the 'crown'.

"What about it?" Harry wondered.

Harry honestly by now was concerned that Luna was for some reason interacting far less with him than with the others when they were not together as a group. He had no idea why she did so, but until there was a good opportunity where he could ask her, that strange behaviour would stay a mystery for the time being.

"Take a closer look." Luna sounded a bit impatient.

They all did take a closer look, but even Hermione couldn't make the connection what had made Luna so excited. "What exactly are we supposed to be looking at?" Ron finally asked, knowing Luna wouldn't take offense.

Uncharacteristically, Luna sighed. "None of you remembers? Dumbledore showed us a picture of it, remember? This is the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw!"

Now Hermione did remember. "Really? I need to take a closer look..." Hermione walked over to the bust, but then stopped and took several steps back. "Am I imagining things, or was I getting a bad feeling all of a sudden?"

"It's not only you. All of a sudden it felt like you were walking straight into serious danger. It was like the bond all of a sudden thought you could die horribly." Harry made no secret how unsettling that feeling had been.

"Call me crazy, but that felt a bit like that time..." Ginny paused for a moment. "...like that time when you opened the locket."

Horror set in when they all realized the implications of that.

"Don't touch it! Who knows what kind of security is on that thing?" Hermione warned them, still remembering all too well how the diary and the locket had nasty defense mechanisms.

"No way I'm going to touch that thing!" Neville remembered the locket all too well. He didn't want to touch something that could have a piece of Voldemort's soul in it.

Harry knew they were starting to be over their heads with this now. "No way we can deal with that on our own. We better tell the Headmaster really fast. I have a very bad feeling about this."

o

"I'm still disappointed that it took such an incident to finally get you to report your discovery to us," McGonagall scolded the Six, making no secret that she had expected better than them keeping this discovery secret from the faculty.

"We know, Professor. We wanted to keep this to ourselves a little longer... search for interesting things." Hermione was the most embarrassed about the scolding they were getting.

"In the hope to get your fair share, don't you?" McGonagall asked with a knowing look, causing Hermione to blush since even she had adopted that line of thinking.

They had reported their find to the Headmaster, but thus were also forced to reveal the entire story. Needless to say that the adults were not exactly impressed with them keeping the discovery of such a room secret. McGonagall had made sure to let them know that it had been rather egoistical to keep the discovery to themselves for possible future gain.

They thankfully were spared from any further scolding when Dumbledore and Remus returned from their inspection of the diadem.

"Simply amazing... This indeed is the lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw. However, I sadly also have to conclude that everything points to Tom indeed having used it to create a Horcrux," Dumbledore said, looking fascinated and disturbed at the same time.

"But how did it end up here? I mean... Voldemort not only somehow must have found it, but must have put it in here as well. You think he did that during his time at school?" Neville wondered, the whole thing making little sense to him.

"Albus wondered about that as well," Remus said. "But no, there would have been little chance for him getting the diadem from wherever it was hidden during his time at school. As far as we could guess, Voldemort must have done that during his last visit to Hogwarts, when he asked for the Defense job."

"He returned to Hogwarts to hide it here?" Ginny wondered. "Kind of bizarre that he thinks so highly of the school that he elected to use it as a hiding place for a Horcrux."

"That is Tom's arrogance at work. No doubt he did it to feel the satisfaction of outsmarting me." Dumbledore didn't sound surprised. "Excuse for a few moments, I need to check something first, before we attempt to destroy that Horcrux."

Dumbledore then left to do whatever he planned to do.

"I wonder what he needs to do first?" Ron wondered, feeling that destroying a part of Voldemort's soul should have priority.

"Dumbledore's thought processes are complicated," Remus explained. "He makes connections in his mind where we would see none. I'm pretty sure he is looking for some answers." He then looked around. "You've been busy in here, though I see you were smart enough to not let the gold cauldron join the pile."

They knew Remus meant the things they had seen as useful and set aside. That was a reminder of how unimpressed the adults were with them.

It took almost half an hour before Dumbledore returned. This time carrying the sword and, surprisingly, being accompanied by the Grey Lady, the ghost of House Ravenclaw.

"My dear Headmaster, I still wonder what you need me for in this... mess?" the ghost wondered.

"Nothing much, my Lady, just some confirmation on an item," Dumbledore explained.

Having an idea what this could be about, they followed the duo towards the location of the diadem. They were not disappointed when as soon as the ghost spotted it, she gasped loudly. "My mother's diadem! How did it get here?! Did that boy bring it here?!"

"Well, that confirms what many have speculated for years who you are," Dumbledore mused, before turning serious. "From your reaction I can discern that this is the real diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw?"

The Grey Lady looked quite upset at the sight of the diadem. "Yes. Yes, it is the real one. I had never thought I would see it again."

Harry finally spoke up. "Stop, stop! We are not following. What is going on?"

The Grey Lady looked a bit offended at the interruption, but Dumbledore knew he had to explain. "After all the theories we made, I felt it of great importance to check for confirmation. I first talked to the oldest elves at Hogwarts, and they did remember someone accessing the room who from the vague descriptions alone can identify as Voldemort."

"So it WAS him who put it in here," Ginny said, the whole thing starting to make more sense. "I can guess he must have found the room somehow and in his arrogance thought he's the only one with that knowledge."

"I concluded as much as that. As for the presence of the Grey Lady..." Dumbledore looked to the ghost in question. "There have long been rumors that she is in a way connected to the founders, but her outburst finally confirmed it."

The Grey Lady looked annoyed but knew there was no reason to hide it now. "Yes, I am Helena Ravenclaw, her daughter... Not that it made my life better in any way. She loved her works much more than she loved me, so in an act of spite I stole her prized diadem and ran away with it. I heard she never admitted to the loss."

The Grey Lady looked not exactly proud of her past choices, seemingly having seen how stupid that had been. "I hid the diadem in a hollow tree years later when my mother had fallen fatally ill and sent the Baron to drag me back... As if seeing me while being on her deathbed would somehow make up for her failings."

"Baron...?" Ron needed a moment to get it. "Wait, you mean the Bloody Baron, the ghost of House Slytherin?"

"Why do you think he is covered in blood?!" The Grey Lady hissed, before realizing it was unfair to Ron. "Yes, it's him. When I refused, he became violent and killed me with his sword. Then he saw what he'd done and he, overcome with remorse, killed himself. All the blood on him is the mark of the murderer and him unable to ever find release."

"You mean unless you grant that to him, right?" Luna guessed, being pretty sure about it.

"Yes, but there is no chance I'll do so. I'm hardly inclined to forgive my murderer; it is bad enough I have to spend eternity with him." The Grey Lady didn't look pleased with that fact at all.

"A very interesting history, but that leaves us with the question of how Voldemort got his hands on the diadem and twisted it with dark magic," Remus threw in.

"It got twisted?" The Grey Lady hovered closer to the diadem, them quickly retreated, as if repulsed. "This is horrible! The darkness radiating from it is so strong even I can feel it. Is that the result of my weakness?"

"You mean Voldemort charmed you to get the location of the diadem out of you? We've seen that he is really good at emotional manipulation - or at least, he was when he still looked human," Harry told the ghost.

"Back then I of course had no idea what he would become. He was so charming and flattering, seemed to sympathize with me... But later I realized that was only to get what he wanted." The Grey Lady looked to the diadem. "I honestly don't care what happens to it, as long as the dark magic is gone. Please excuse me... All of this has really upset me..." She then vanished through a wall and was gone.

"Kind of a sick story, but at least we now have the full picture." Ron looked to the diadem. "Who is going to destroy it?"

"I want to do it." Luna then saw everything give he questioning looks. "I first found it and I empathize with the Grey Lady a lot. It is my place to destroy it."

"Are you sure about that?" Neville asked with worry, remembering the defense the locket had risen to protect itself.

"Yes." Then her expression softened. "Don't get me worng, I do understand you are worried for my safety, but it is my place to do this."

Everyone looked to the Headmaster, since in the end it was his decision if that was to be allowed. Dumbledore pondered about it for a moment, before coming to a decision. "I will allow it, but we will watch closely and step in, should the situation warrant it."

Taking the sword - and almost stumble due to the fact how heavy it was, making her wonder if Kreacher was way stronger than he looked - Luna slowly approached the diadem. On the outside she looked as calm as ever, but on the inside she was nervous. The closer she walked to the Horcrux, the more it felt like there was a dark heartbeat in the air.

I can not falter now. I have to stay strong, she told herself.

Then she almost stumbled when having stepped over an invisible boundary. It felt like something was seriously wrong and her body was starting to protest. She felt the very real threat of her lunch coming back up the wrong way. The whole experience was disorienting and Luna had trouble to stay standing, everything seeming to start to spin around her in a dark vortex.

The defense... She felt that her strength was starting to dwindle and had a good idea how that Horcrux was defending itself.

Despite everything, Luna did manage to raise the sword for the strike. However, the Horcrux seemed to realize her intentions and decided to stop her from doing so. She did stumble right at the strike when a wave of dizziness hit her, the feeling having grown much worse all of a sudden, and hoped that the sword had connected when she lost her grip on it.

"SKEEEEEAIIIIIIIKKKKKKK"

An ear-splitting scream hit the air when the sword did manage to carve ope the center gem of the diadem. The black blood of the Horcrux shot out of the ruined gem in a stream, barely missing the now fallen Luna. Luna however noticed little of all of that, being busy with not falling face first onto the floor while vomiting her lunch all over said floor.

She then felt someone pull back her long hair, so that no vomit would land on it, and then two arms prevented her from face-planting into her own vomit. It took her some more moments before no more would come out and she coughed a few times while the dizziness slowly faded away. When she finally looked up, she saw with no surprise that it was Neville was was carefully holding her.

"How do you feel?" he asked with some worry.

"I feel sick..." It was one of her typically honest answers.

"I think we should better bring Miss Lovegood to Madam Pomfrey to treat her symptoms," McGonagall suggested, then saw Dumbledore take hold of the diadem. "Albus?"

Dumbledore held up the now destroyed Horcrux. The diadem was still intact, the only thing destroyed being the center gem. "Like with the locket, this is an artifact of the founders. It will be safely stored away until a time when Lord Voldemort is defeated."

"Whatever..." Neville honestly didn't care while helping Luna leave for the hospital wing.


...the next day, Potions class...

Compared to what happened the day prior, the following Monday was downright mundane. The contrast was really sharp: yesterday they had destroyed another part of Voldemort's soul, bringing themselves closer to defeating him, and now they again were normal students who were concerned with school work. However, such was life; not all of it could be exciting after all.

Right now they were starting Potions and Harry couldn't wait to see if the notes he had found - and which he had kept secret from the adults - were as good as they promised to be. Hermione of course was not impressed, but didn't stop him.

"Don't get offended when I tell you: 'I told you so'," was all she had said about the matter shortly before Snape had entered the potions lab to start the lessons.

Now they had arrived at the brewing stage for the potion and Harry couldn't wait to test out the notes. Now let's see if this Prince guy is worth all the self-praise he had sprinkled throughout the notes...

Harry went to work right away, having put the notes into his Potions book so it wouldn't be obvious what he was doing. After all, openly reading from some notes other than the book was something he was damn sure Snape would really love to give him detention for. Like all teenagers of course Harry was vastly overestimating some of his own skills.

Well, I will be! It actually works, so the guy really knows what he is talking about, Harry said with glee when seeing the instructions right away have a highly positive effect on his potion.

At another table, Dudley shook his head. "Who does he think he's fooling? Certainly not Professor 'eagle-eyed' Snape."

"Oh, I can see it. I noticed Professor Snape frowning for a moment when looking to Harry. So he has noticed. You think we should somehow warn your cousin?" Millicent wondered, knowing that would soon enough get unpleasant for Harry.

"With Snape keeping a close watch on us? Do I look that stupid?" Dudley shook his head. "It's a nice reminder that Harry can be as dumb as everyone else at times. No, for such a poor attempt at cheating he honestly deserves to be caught."

"Harsh..." However, Millicent understood where her boyfriend was coming from.

Dudley of course still was not in the best of moods due to random students thinking, now that his relation to Harry was revealed, that he could be their ticket to get something from Harry. Of course he saw through that right away and told all of them to forget it. Most accepted that, while some were more persistent pests.

That of course always ended badly for those persistent pests, one way or another. Still, it was severely disrupting his life at the school and he knew who to thank for that new complication in his life. Though, that of course paled compared to the fact that he now was in Voldemort crosshairs.

Finally it came to potion inspection and Snape's highly critical eyes looked at the results. His expression was unreadable and he also revealed not emotion when telling the class to bottle the results for him to grade. Students did place the bottles on his desk and cleaned up. However, when the students were starting to leave, Snape spoke up after handing Draco and Pansy to the next handler.

"Potter... Stay here. There is something we have to discuss..." He said evenly.

Shit! He knows! Harry realized.

Seeing that there would be no support forthcoming from his friends and girlfriend - hell, Hermione even gave him look that screamed that she felt it was his own mess - Harry knew there would be no way out of this. So he waited to face the music. The others were soon gone and Snape closed the door, before giving him a very sharp look.

"Potter, do you think I'm an idiot?!" Snape snarled, clearly incensed at Harry's attempt at having some not allowed extra help. "Hand over those parchments. NOW!"

Seeing Snape so angry, Harry didn't dare to say anything and quickly handed over the Prince's notes. Snape did look at them and his eyebrows rose for a moment, before his open anger became a colder one. "Ah... I see. So you followed the instructions from this. You follow me... now."

Harry knew that being a smart guy would only make it worse, so he followed Snape straight to the office of the Headmaster. In the anteroom he saw Ms. Spencer only shake her head, clearly knowing from experience what that had to be about. He however only got more mortified when they entered the office, since Remus and Dora were there as well, discussing something with Dumbledore.

"Harry?" Then Dora saw how angry Snape looked. "All right, Harry, what did you do?"

Harry had no chance to tell, since Snape beat him to it. "Headmaster, I caught Potter cheating during the lesson, reading instructions from this." He then handed over the notes to the Headmaster, who took a look at them.

"Notes made by the Half-Blood Prince..." Dumbledore said evenly, not revealing anything.

"Yes, and those notes are equal to one of the books that are not allowed for students," Snape added.

"How would you know?" Harry finally tried to protest.

"Again, do you think I'm an idiot?" Seeing that Harry had fallen silent, Snape then continued "I would know anyway as a professional, but in this case you are especially out of luck, because I originally wrote those notes and a professional Potions book based on them was also written by me."

Harry looked utterly astonished. "Wait, YOU are the Half-Blood Prince?"

Snape snorted at Harry's reaction. "I thought you don't discriminate by blood status?"Snape snarked. "But if you have to know, yes. That was a pseudonym I used during my school days. And don't even think I fancied myself to be royalty. That's just my mother's maiden name."

"Well, Harry, I have a good idea where you found these notes," Dumbledore said, giving Harry a disappointed look that made him squirm. "I honestly am disappointed that a good student like you saw the need to cheat. Severus, what punishment do you think is fitting?"

"Normally I would say leave him to Filch for a month, but I know you would veto that." Snape seemed to enjoy Harry paling a bit at the idea of having to endure Filch's punishments. "One week of detention... with me."

I know he'll make this as unpleasant as possible for me, Harry thought while listening to Dumbledore agree to the punishment.

Several minutes later, Remus and Dora were escorting Harry away.

"You should not complain. After all, whenever James or Sirius cheated in school, despite not needing to do so, I also felt they deserved the punishment they got for it," Remus told Harry.

"No, I know I deserve it. It was a stupid idea now that I think about it," Harry admitted. "I honestly am baffled that Snape is the Half-Blood Prince."

"No, let me guess. You thought that Snape has to be a pure-blood, right?" Dora asked Harry.

"I never thought he could have a partially non-magical background," Harry admitted. "Ehm, Uncle Remus, did you ever hear that pseudonym of his during your school days?"

"I can't say I did, but then again Snape and me, we did not share the same social circles, if you know what I mean." He then thought for a moment. "Perhaps your mother had known. After all, they had been friends in Hogwarts before their falling out."

Harry of course knew about that day, having been told that Snape and his mother had been friends during their school years until that day. It was perhaps one of the low points of James Potter, but Harry understood it had been a mutual antagonism and that his father after that incident had manned up and became a better person. He had never said anything to Snape, because he felt it was not his place.

"Still weird for me to imagine that she had been friends with him," Harry thought aloud.

"There is a lot of stuff about the youth of everyone's parents that is unknown. I at times wondered if that really had been her when my Mum told me of her school days at Hogwarts," Dora added, even her having trouble to imagine Andromeda's life from before having her.

"I think you also will enter that club once the baby is born," Remus reminded his wife. "After all, I do remember you holding the record for the fastest detention in recent Hogwarts history."

"Wolfie..." Dora reminded her husband, her hair taking a reddish tint.

"I never heard of that one. What happened?" Harry asked.

"Now look what you have done..." Dora decided to answer the question herself. "To make it short, when Trelawney returned after pausing for one year, she looked radically different from what she used to look like. During the opening feast I blurted out in front of everyone that that woman can't be Trelawney, since she didn't look like a scarecrow."

Now Harry understood. "Ouch."

"Yes, ouch. Professor Sprout congratulated me for getting the fastest detention in recent history and I was laughing stock for a week," Dora finished her explanation and it was clear she would not explain it again.

Harry honestly hoped he would never make such an embarrassing blunder.


...January 26th, the Watson house...

Sirius had never made a secret of the fact that he didn't want to consider the vast majority of the Blacks as people he could identify with, feeling his family instead had been a massive embarrassment. On the Black side most were dead anyway and of those still alive only Andromeda and her family were worthy of being called family.

On Diane's side however, such a problem didn't exist and he always enjoyed seeing how happy his children became when they visited Diane's father - especially when her older brother Archie and his family were being present as well. Such as this Sunday for example. After all the stress going on in their lives, it was a relief to see the children greet their Uncle Archie so enthusiastically, since their happiness was most important for their parents.

"Uncle Archie!" they both greeted Diane's brother as soon as seeing him.

"Oh, careful! Both of you have become so big by now, greeting me so enthusiastically could knock me over!" he said with a laugh before giving each of them a hug.

"Oh! Stev! Kath!" That was Archie's daughter Alexa, who quickly greeted her favorite cousins - as well as far as she knew her only cousins - with the enthusiasm of a four (closer to five) year old girl.

"Maybe we should carefully escort them inside first?" Diane asked, loving the enthusiasm with which the children were talking, even if Alexa due to her young age was not that well-spoken yet.

"Oh, that would be a good idea." Archie's wife Melissa had appeared right then, holding her son James in her arms. The boy had only been born half a year ago, and Sirius had felt a bit amused at the name choice.

"Yes... Children, maybe you all want to greet your Grandpa first?" Diane told the children.

The children then realized what they had forgotten. "Oh, Grandpa!" All three children then quickly ran into the house to greet their beloved grandfather.

"Oh, I really missed this. It's a bit sad that in recent years you preferred private Christmas celebrations. The twins have grown so much since the last time I've seen them," Archie said, looking a bit sad.

"I wish we could, trust me, but there are things getting in the way..." Sirius didn't say it, but Diane knew very well what he was talking about. "Why do you think Diane took the chance when hearing you would visit with your family?"

"I know, there never seems to be enough time..." Archie also had changed from the young man he'd met all those years ago, and the older Archie seemed to have accepted that responsibilities would limit the available time.

"But I know you regret none of it," Melissa reminded her husband, and her holding their baby son proved her point. "But maybe we should go inside? It's after all rather cold out here."

They had no idea that they were being observed.

He's surrounding himself with non-magical animals and is a massive blood-traitor. What a huge disgrace you are, Sirius Black, the man thought while watching everyone walk into the house.

While their Master's orders were clear that Harry Potter was his alone to eliminate, Black and his joke of a family were a different matter. Considering the many hate-filled rants he had heard from Bellatrix, eliminating Black would please her a lot. The man knew he wasn't a terribly important Death Eater and he hoped with landing such a coup he could gain Voldemort's favor. That also was why he had kept quit about what he was doing.

Little Whinging was sadly still off-limits to them thanks to the sorcery put onto Potter that was keeping them out. However, his patience in observing from the outside was now paying off, since the only adult wizard in this place was Black himself, and if he used brutal power, he felt he could overwhelm Black and then eradicate the entire brood in one go.

Granted, Black had been very thorough in trying to confuse anyone trying to figure out where he and his family were going, but he had not been confused and was led right to this house. He reasoned that unlike Black's home, this place couldn't have much in the way of defense - if any at all.

He only needed to be a little more patient.

Inside the house meanwhile, no one was suspecting anything while the greeted Peter Watson, whose hair had become noticeably grayer over the years. The older man had already earlier been greeted enthusiastically by his grandchildren and now saw his actual children with their spouses appear.

"Ah yes, I see today you want to make up for your excuses at Christmas, don't you?" he asked, though there was no venom behind it. They after all had told him in advance why it wouldn't work out and this visit had been planned for several weeks.

"Dad, you know yourself, sometimes life doesn't give us what we want," Archie said. "After all, it wasn't like little James had planned on getting sick."

Diane did remember how nerve-wrecking that had been for her brother and Melissa. "As for us, Dad, after Archie's family had to decline and us also unable to have the Evans over due to their children staying at school, we decided to have a small, private celebration."

Diane felt quite guilty at telling her father that. In reality they had looked for an excuse due to security concerns. Their visit also was a bit of a risk, since they were leaving Little Whinging, but Sirius had assured her that he had put in security measures. Whatever exactly he had done, he naturally had not told her father of it.

Dad would twist his ears should he find out. He after all hates the 'for your own good' excuse, Diane thought.

"I still remember all those bullies who said you are a bloke lacking the parts ... at least until I set them straight and didn't discriminate by gender. Now looking at you they would go green with envy what a good mother you are," Archie told Diane.

"I remember being able to take care of them on my own once I was old enough," Diane reminded her brother.

"Oh, I can attest to her still being really tough, not that it stops her from being an attractive woman and we do plan to try for more children," Sirius added with a small laugh, before holding Diane a little closer.

"Yuck, Mum and Dad are getting mushy again," Steve said with a grimace, honestly not wanting to witness his parents acting like that.

"Please, not in front of us!" Kathleen added with a pleading look.

Melissa couldn't help but to laugh. "Looks like your children have spoken. So better control yourselves."

"Seems to be a universal law that children don't like watching their parents being affectionate with each other. I remember Archie's reaction when his mother and I..." Peter then looked amused at his son silently pleading with him to not continue. "However, I digress..."

He however was not able to continue any further, when suddenly... -WREEEEEEEE!- A loud noise shattered the atmosphere and Sirius right away knew that it was the warning signal that someone with magic, who was not invited, was intruding onto the property. He wisely had set up several safeguards for such an eventuality, though he knew that it would not be enough to keep a determined intruder out.

"What is that noise?!" Peter shouted out, only then... -BLAM- It sounded like an explosion he went off outside. "Something blew up!" He then to his confusion saw Sirius hectically reach into his jacket and pull out a stick.

"Diane, protect the children! I have a very bad feeling that..." Sirius was unable to continue when he saw something through the window and hectically conjured a shield. -Blooooom- A second later a hole was blasted into the wall, debris flying everywhere. Thankfully, the shield protected them from injury.

"What the hell is going on?!" Archie said in half a panic while try to protect his wife and children.

"You damn rat!" Sirius growled when seeing someone jump in through the hole.

The Death Eater - who else could it be - laughed at the insult. "Sorry Black, but I'm not Pettigrew. Smart of you to set an alarm and protective wards, but your security was not good. Now ask yourself, do you really want to attack me?"

Sirius then saw that the man had his wand pointed towards where Diane was, his wife realizing the danger. "Bastard!" Sirius growled.

"Try to attack me... I'm faster," the Death Eater mocked him.

"Eeeeeek!" Kathleen screamed in fear at that moment. -pang!-

"What!?" The Death Eater was distracted for a second, quickly realizing that it just was an outburst of accidental magic blowing a light bulb, but that distraction was long enough fir Sirius.

"Repulso!" Sirius shouted and the spell hit the Death Eater, smashing him into a wall close to Peter.

"You'll regret that!" the man screamed, even though he was dazed. He raised his wand but... -whap! -crac!- "Ahhrrrggh!"

While Peter Watson was horribly confused about whatever was going on, he knew the man was dangerous, and that the stick he was holding - whatever that was - had to be some kind of weapon. His old instincts kicked in and he grabbed the nearest available thing that could be used as a weapon, in this case a heavy spanner wrench from work which he had forgotten to put away, and slammed it onto the attacker's arm, shattering the bone easily.

"YAAHHH!" The Death Eater screamed, dropping his wand, and had little chance to do anything else before eating a stunner right into the face, which slammed him into the wall again, before he collapsed into a crumpled heap.

"Shit... That was too close!" Sirius cursed himself while lowering his wand.

"What's going on here?" Archie wondered, still alarmed by whatever had happened, while his wife was busy with trying to calm down the children.

Sirius knew he had to first make a call to take care of this mess, but he also dreaded the explanations he had to give. And the day had started so well...

o

"You honestly seem to attract trouble, Black," the MI-X agent said while watching his agents haul away the still stunned Death Eater.

"It's not like I'm gunning for that kind of attention," Sirius said, then looked around. "Still no sign of the Ministry."

"Which only proves how terribly overstretched they really are if they can't react to such a serious incident in a timely manner." The agent then looked at the house. "And you don't want to have our wizards try to repair that hole?"

"No, since once the Ministry does arrive, that would cause unwanted questions. I've already made up my story and the others are safely hidden away in the house, since I won't allow the Ministry to wipe their memories," Sirius explained.

"Must have been fun to explain all of that to your extended family. Now I better go. After all, no need for the Ministry to see me here." The agent then left and Sirius heard a van drive away.

Now let's see how long the Ministry needs... It must have been several more minutes before finally he heard the sound of people apparating in.

"Quick people, secure the... Sirius Black?" the man leading the group stopped his hectic orders when seeing Sirius stand calmly in the hole in the wall. "Mr. Black, what are you doing here?"

"Well, this is the house of my father-in-law. I went to visit him, but he wasn't home. However, some Death Eater thought this would be a great moment to ambush me," Sirius explained calmly.

"Where is the attacker?" It seemed the man was trying to save face.

"Long gone," Sirius shot down that hope. "Ran away when I fought back. Left me with all this damage."

The man seemed to deflate even further.

Some time later Sirius entered the house, relieved that everything had gone according to plan. They even had fixed the hole in the wall, though the room behind it still was a mess. He didn't like that they did obliviate the neighbors - and following standard procedure they had done so without even asking questions - but that at least would keep the whole mess secret.

"All right, they are gone," Sirius said and everyone else walked out from where they had hidden away. His extended family looked bewildered at the revelations they had heard either from him, or from Diane. Clearly she must have told them more while they were hiding away.

Diane right away saw the look her father gave Sirius. "Dad, I told you he never lied about anything. He only left out the magical component."

"I know, but... Crap, that makes his family even worse bastards than I already imagined them to be..." He then saw the look the women gave him at the usage of such language in front of the children. "Sorry..."

Archie for his part gave Sirius a look of respect. "I think the whole thing about magic being real hasn't yet fully hit us. What strikes me is, that you are loaded and have all those powers, yet you work as a simple police officer."

"I would not exchange the life I gained for anything else. I was so sick and tired of all the things going on in the magical world that I said goodbye and tried not to look back. Of course it was an illusion that I could cut it off completely, but I never again could live in that society," Sirius explained to Archie.

"This is all really confusing and Diane only could tell us so much..." Melissa then looked to her daughter, who was clinging to her leg. "Alexa is really confused as well... And still scared. She doesn't understand what's going on."

"I know. Even though our children already knew, all this violence scared them as well," Diane agreed, seeing how upset Steve and Kathleen still were.

Peter then realized something. "Wait a minute... You told us to hide because we were not supposed to know, right?"

"According to the jerks in charge, yes. They would have flushed that right out of your brains... Even little Alexa," Sirius said, looking disgusted at the idea. Archie and Melissa only felt more protective of their daughter after hearing that.

"Look, I know how it feels when something like that really impacts how you view the world..." Diane knew that without the distraction of Sirius proposing, she would have brooded over it longer. "Now we can explain all of it more carefully... Though perhaps not in here."

They understood, since the living room was still a total chaos. "Let's go to the kitchen for that," Peter suggested.

"Go ahead, I want to try something first." Sirius waited, until the door was closed. "Kreacher!"

-pop- Said elf appeared right away. "How can Kreacher serve Master Sirius?"

"Kreacher, this is the house of my father-in-law. We had an unwelcome visitor, and he is dealt with, but the whole room is a chaos. Can you discreetly take care of this mess?" Sirius told Kreacher.

The elf looked a bit offended at the sheer chaos. "Kreacher will make it all tidy again and no one will notice Kreacher."

"Good. Once you are done, return to your normal duties." Sirius then left for the kitchen, leaving Kreacher to do his thing.


...February 1st...

Hermione did feel a bit weird that she was the only one of their group who would attend the apparition lessons, but fact of the matter was, that she was the oldest of the group. Ron's birthday was still a month away and you had to be a legal adult to attend those lessons. Harry's and Neville's birthdays were in summer, so no dice there, and not to even speak of Ginny and Luna.

Arriving to where the lessons would be held, Hermione quickly realized that the hard cutoff date of February 1st meant that from her year only few students were attending. It could have been more, but it seemed many of them would save those lessons for their final year. Most of the students present were indeed from seventh year.

Ron's idea that the Ministry was now only teaching to adults because of parents suing them after an accident now actually looked quite reasonable.

Let's hope I won't humiliate myself. From all I was told, apparition isn't something you can learn from theory. It's a matter of practicing, she thought while walking in.

Having nothing to do for the moment, she listened in on the conversations.

"Wow, finally... Though I'm a bit nervous, since I've heard a number of horror stories about when apparition goes wrong," one girl said, looking as nervous as she sounded.

"I've heard of those as well," a boy told her. "Hacking off part of your body... Brrrrr... What's even worse is the cavalier way many actually talk about the matter, as if it's just a minor inconvenience."

"Well, I've seen enough things on the telly about teleportation accidents that it makes me wonder how numb adult wizards must be towards serious injury. Their medical advances have made them way too indifferent towards such things," another boy added.

"Yikes! Now I'm praying that we won't witness some kind of bloodbath during these lessons," the girl gasped, looking a bit paler now.

Now Hermione was more nervous than before. I already noticed that multiple times, like all those injuries in Quidditch, but it being so easy to fix a lot of things made magical society develop a terrible mindset when it comes to injury.

Her thoughts however were interrupted when the instructor entered.

"Ah, good. Let me check attendance," he said. Shortly later he confirmed that everyone who had applied was being present. "Everyone is here... excellent. Now, over the next several weeks we will go through the theory of apparition as well as slowly test your skills at each session."

He then looked around. "I have to warn you again that apparition done poorly can result in injury, so if any of you wants out..." Seeing that no one left, he nodded. "All right, then we start with the theory of apparition..."

The lesson went by rather fast.

None of them had every guessed how much was behind apparition after seeing adults simply pop in and out of existence for most of their lives. The actual act of apparition was easy in theory, but one really had to train oneself in order to do those things on instinct and no longer think about it. At the end of the lesson, students were told try try to apparate just two meters to their left with the instructor saying he was ready should an emergency happen.

Tellingly, no one actually managed to apparate in this first lesson even over such a short distance. No one except for Hermione, that is. However, she was paying a heavy price for her success.

"Yaahhrrggllll-l-l-l!" That unpleasant sound escaped Hermione while she vomited all over the floor after successfully apparating for two meters.

"Oh dear, that is a common side-effect at the earliest successful apparitions. Sadly, the only thing that helps is exposure to get the body used to it." The instructor saw the disgusted looks from the students. "Yes, it will get messy, but there is no way around that for many of you."

Disgust was written all over Hermione's face while she watched the instructor vanish the vomit. Of course he only says that now. This felt as bad as that portkey at the World Cup.

Now she actually was relieved that her friends - and especially Ron - were not attending these lessons. She did have her pride after all and there was no way she wanted them to watch her vomit on a regular basis.

to be continued...

Next Episode:

"Growing Troubles"


Notes:

Here the notes.

Besides the announcement of apparition lessons, we do see the fallout of Draco and Pansy learning of the connection between Harry and Dudley. The adults are correct in that the annoyance at the school is the minor problem. Voldemort knowing now is the major one. I also used the opportunity to have a scene with Petunia and Snape which shows how Petunia's viewpoint has shifted by now. I think she does nail Snape's character weakness that got him into the whole mess.

I really wanted to show a bit more of Snape's teaching style (without showing the actual lessons), so the classroom scene came into being. The scene with Myrtle came to me on a whim, when I wanted to show how petty Pansy can be.

The Room of Hidden Things kicks off two things.

As a little take that to the canon plot, I do arrange for the whole Half-Blood Prince thing to be solved in a single chapter. I always felt that plot was just dumb (Rowling could have named the book something else). Harry at times is not exactly clever, though it did give him a nice conversation with Remus and Dora.

The big one of course is the discovery of the diadem. I really hope I did all of that in a believable way, especially with things I did set up earlier. In canon the damn thing also didn't seem to have a defense, which I've changed here.

It's been quite some time since we saw the Watson family, and of course things go sideways really fast... Though, no one got hurt, I'm not that mean. You can imagine however, how awkward that conversation was and will be.