Tonks didn't want to let go of Harry, now that the new school year was starting up, she'd be going off to the auror training while he would return to Hogwarts. But she was to start the next stage of her life while he continued with what he was doing. Waving to him as the train began to depart Tonks let out a disappointed whimper. "He will be fine Nymphadora, he'll write to you so often you'll get sick of it," Andromeda tried to warn her daughter.
"No way that's going to happen," Tonks rolled her eyes before lightly shoving her mother. "And stop calling me Nymphadora."
"You better get used to it," Andromeda warned her daughter about getting upset when her name was uttered. "The auror training is still run by-"
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE," Mad-Eye bellowed out as the other trainees screamed and scattered from the raining spellfire. Tonks had rolled on the ground to transfigure her shoe into a barrier before reaching her wand over to fire back for all the good it did. She only hoped that Harry was having an easier time in Hogwarts than she was dealing with this insane wizard who made it a habit of attacking them at random times.
She was really hedging her bets that this was all worth it after her toilet tried to eat her and she had to stab her mattress to death just to get some sleep.
Meanwhile Harry sat in the Great Hall watching the new first year witches being sorted into the various houses. He had hoped for another boy besides Gendry, but it was nice to not be the youngest wizard in the castle anymore. After his summer with Tonks and her family, where he was educated on the social customs of the magical world, he was starting to notice the interactions more and more and what they really meant.
Looking around the room he understood that this wasn't just an institution for learning, he was supposed to connect with other students and find those he believed would be a good fit for his coven. And beyond the few people he knew more than in just passing, it made him realize that while he had been friendly to everyone he met in the castle and they had with him, he hadn't actually made many friends.
So at the very least he was resolute in branching out to learn more about the witches he'd be spending upwards of the next six years with and who might be suitable for his coven. And he realized that would require him to really come to know himself to know who would fit in with him and Tonks.
Turning his head he suppressed a yelp from one of the newly sorted witches who had, after being sorted into Gryffindor, rushed over to his side and snapped a photograph of him. Blinking out the spots from his vision, he offered Colleen a warm smile because while he might find this a tad overbearing, the witches in Hogwarts were still the same kind people they always had been. Even now that he knew that there were a not small number of them who might want to be close to him.
However Harry also knew that he would be unlikely to find the perfect girl to join his coven in the first few days back in the castle, so he would endeavor to focus on his education because ultimately it wouldn't benefit him to fail a class over this change.
And as he was attending his first Defense Against the Dark Arts class of the year, he felt that too was very different from his previous year. The girls in class were hardly paying attention because he would notice that they had to be called on multiple times before they would give an answer.
But beyond that, everything Professor Lockhart was testing them on wasn't about the spells he used in his books but instead things like his favorite color or how bright his smile was. Harry wondered if that was just done to help break the ice for his students, to allow them to get to know him better since as Harry saw it they were enraptured by his celebrity status.
After the Cornish pixies were released though, the lesson soon devolved into chaos. Many of the girls were sent into a panic and fled the classroom. Harry was trying his best to get the little creatures one by one but thankfully Hermione stood up and with a single wide area spell, suspended them all in the air.
"Thanks Hermione," Harry turned to the girl with a smile only for her to glare at him and walk out of the classroom in a huff.
He let out an exasperated groan because for the last couple of days Hermione hadn't wanted to talk to him at all. In fact she practically shoved him out of her way when he greeted her after they had all gotten to the dorms on the first night back. But he wasn't going to be able to figure out what Hermione's problem was in the time it took to get to his next class, so he instead flicked his wand to levitate Norine down from the chandelier that the pisces had stuck her up on.
"Thank you Harry," Norine blurted out quickly. She was blushing from the embarrassment that came with being disarmed by the pixies and then having to be saved by another student.
Harry patted her on the shoulder. "Anytime Norine," he said as he went to pack up his satchel.
As he attended his lessons throughout the week Harry felt so distracted because now he was watching the other witches for their behavior. And it was getting him nowhere, all the girls were nice to him. They'd greet him in the morning, talk to him about his classes during meals but it didn't tell him if they were someone he'd truly want to have around him. It made him miss Tonks all the more because he knew that his ignorance of what he had been doing last year had brought out her utmost honesty when she interacted with him.
Maybe it was paranoia but now that Mrs. Tonks had told him how the magical world worked, he didn't know if they were being nice to him because they were just nice people, or if it was because he was a wizard, or because he had started a coven last year.
It was really started to build on him all these new responsibilities that he was so thankful when Oliver had told him of the first training for this year's quidditch was going to be today, so he suited up to head out to the pitch with the team and other housemates who either wanted to watch to have something to do or to see if they wanted to try out for a reserve position, only to come up to the Slytherin team also arriving to use the pitch.
"What do you mean Professor Snape gave you the time?" Oliver questioned because he had been cleared for the use of the pitch today but the paper he was just handed told him otherwise.
"It's because we have our new seeker to train," Marcie Flint informed the Gryffindor captain smugly. She and the other witches on the team stepped out of the way to show off Dracaena Malfoy who gave a grin when she looked at the Gryffindor team.
Harry waved to the girl because despite the less than pleasant meetings he has had with her over the first year, he was still of the mind that she wasn't all that bad, when compared to the people he knew outside of Hogwarts. Dracaena's face flushed before she huffed and looked away from him.
"And we need to be able to test our new brooms as well," Marcie grinned as the entire team held out their sleek black brooms.
"Those are Nimbus 2001's, the fastest broom on the market," Ronolda gasped in shock, each one of those cost more than her mum made in a year and this was seven of the bloody things.
"Jealous Weasley," Dracaena snarked before seeing the newest wizard in the castle standing with the crowd of Gryffindors who had come out to watch the practice. "Of course your mum was busy trying so hard for a wizard to get a decent price for him, how about I make her an offer?"
Ronalda and the two beaters puffed up at the implied threat of Dracaena making overtures at their little brother, but Harry could see a fight ready to start and quickly moved between the groups. If he didn't do something then a fight was going to break out. "Fine, it's fine, we can go see Professor McGonagall to request the pitch later in the day."
He quickly turned to Oliver who wasn't happy at the moment. "You said you wanted to do some nighttime practice if a game ran long anyway, at least it's early enough in the year to not be freezing when we do it."
The Gryffindor captain grumbled before understanding that he wasn't going to have the pitch this morning since the other team had a legitimate reason to need it sooner and he could see that Frieda and Georgina were getting too riled up, and he didn't need them going off and doing something stupid that got them in detention. "We'll be back later," Oliver nodded as he moved over to the twin redheads and wrapped an arm around each shoulder while leading them back into the castle.
Harry figured that was the best outcome he could get but missed what Oliver whispered to the two of them, he was going to peel something off, Harry didn't get the whole message but it worked that instead of wanting to come back and beat up the younger witch they were more excited to get back into the castle.
This lack of conflict caused the other students who had been expecting a fight to disperse and Harry just sighed before going over to the owlry, he wanted to write up a letter to Tonks since he hadn't heard from her in a couple of days.
Said witch couldn't even muster up the energy to climb into her bed, just laying on the cold stone floor of the barracks. "I hate this," she groaned because her entire body felt like jelly. It had only been two weeks and over half of the trainees had dropped out or been cut for some reason or another. Lack of focus, cheating during training, or just general attitude problems, it was the wringer to end all wringers they were being put through. And everyone was in similar states of exhaustion.
"Get back here you ruddy bird," Tonks heard a voice shout before a loud screech echoed and the door opened to show a snowy white owl winging her way into the room.
It was one she recognized. "Hey Hedwig," Tonks tiredly said as the bird landed next to her head and looked down at her. "I'm just tired, can you read it to me?"
When the bird just quirked her head Tonks sighed. "Yeah, didn't think so," Tonks figured that wasn't going to happen, so she reached out and took the letter from her leg along with the shrunken box attached.
She smiled at Harry's handwriting on the envelope, holding it to her face she could smell some of that body spray that he had started to wear, it wasn't overpowering but it smelt like sandalwood and vanilla. Popping open the seal she pulled out the letter and started to read.
"Hey, I thought we were told all our mail was going through the department and if it wasn't an emergency it'd be held," one trainee complained seeing that Tonks had gotten a letter.
Her eyes were flicking around as he just talked about what's been going on in the castle but it was how much he was missing her and that he wished he could be there to help and if she needed anything at all he'd get it for her that made her heart flutter to know that Harry cared about her so much. "That's because this letter is from my warlock, and his owl doesn't do normal deliveries," Tonks answered before returning to the letter.
"And I figure that the food there isn't too awesome, so I asked the castle elves if I could make you your favorite, they got really antsy about it but I don't think I did too poorly," the letter read as Tonks looked to the parcel and unshrunk it and she could already smell the wonderful aroma of sliced ham and the rich, flavorful stew. Quickly opening the lid.
"Ooh Harry if you were here right now, just a little older and I wasn't dead tired I would make your toes curl," she muttered to herself. She returned to the letter to see what other little gifts he had for her.
"And since I figured you were making friends or hoping to, I put in some cookies I baked for you to share," Tonks let out an aww at how thoughtful Harry was. Pulling out the tray she could still see that they were warm, clearly the castle elves put the stasis charms on them at the right moment to make sure they were still gooey and melty. "Listen up ya cunts, my warlock, bless him, decided to make cookies for you lot. Come get some."
The smells that were coming from the package were already making the other witches salivate. Once they tried the treats though they were moaning from the first good thing they had to eat in weeks. Tonks had gotten up the energy to get onto her bed to dig into the food Harry had made for it and it was incredible. "Your warlock did this for you?"
"Yup, he's really supportive of me," Tonks answered between bites.
"So you ever going to tell us about this amazing wizard?" another trainee asked.
"Nope, he's not big on getting attention for himself," Tonks lied, she didn't rightly know whether or not Harry cared if more people knew that he was the warlock she had decided to serve. But she also figured it would be easier for him if fewer people knew by name. "He likes his privacy."
"Which means he's famous," one girl surmised from the lack of information being shared.
"Is it Lockhart? You bitch, you have to tell me if it's The Gilderoy Lockhart," a witch whined because she had a massive crush on the famous man, many witches did. "I would do anything just to suck his dick."
"Like I said he likes his privacy," Tonks smirked because maybe a couple of years ago she too had a crush on the wizard, he was rich, famous, good looking, an obvious object for her to pine over. But she's got someone else now who was magnitudes better.
In another room Alastor was observing the trainees to make sure no one had brought in contraband or was trying to undermine his teachings. Normally he'd have stopped the owl himself but his findings after looking into each applicant's family hinted that she had joined a coven, to who he hadn't deduced yet, but it wouldn't be worth the hassle to have a wizard down here hemming and hawing about this that or the other because he got the bird's feathers out of place. If it came to be a problem he would track the bird to the owner and have a discussion about what was appropriate.
Tonks' return letter which thanked him profusely for the food because as she put it, 'even lunch is training and you have to be prepared to survive off of rations'. Harry felt that was a tad extreme, because that sounded like something you'd do for a soldier, not a police officer. But she expressed her confidence in this and that just hearing how much he was supporting her made it that much easier to get through each day.
That put a smile on his face because if she could get through the grueling training just knowing how much he wanted her to succeed then he could definitely find the confidence in himself to meet new people in the castle.
Now he just needed to find people. Which isn't actually all that hard being that the castle was so full, but Harry wasn't entirely sure who to approach. He couldn't just walk up to a couple of witches and go, 'hey I need to have a few more witches in my coven, do you think you can fill the position.' That would be disastrous at a minimum.
So as he went about his time with his studies he hoped that something would come about to push him in the right direction, sitting in the library he was finishing up his readings for charms when as he closed his book and noticed on the far end of the table a lone magazine. Going over to pick it up he looked at the cover of it. "The Quibbler?" Harry raised an eyebrow and then because he hadn't seen anyone else in the library for a while put the magazine in his bag so he could return it to its owner.
Author's Notes: While the Chamber of Secrets is for me one of the best in the franchise, in terms of pacing it's pretty terrible. The film keeps things going at a decent enough pace but when you look at the timeline of events. Once back at Hogwarts, Harry's first lesson with Lockhart and the Quidditch confrontation happens, but that's in the first week and then nothing happens until Halloween, almost 2 whole months later, then you get the quidditch match in November, the dueling club and sneaking into the Slytherin dorms in December and then nothing happens until May. The book has the valentine's day bit but that's fairly superfluous in the context of the story but it's a pretty big gap that I have to contend with.
So I'm struggling a bit with the pacing myself because some events I think would happen at the same time that they did in canon but I need to also fill in these gaps. I'll try to add in what I think will work but I also had to try and get creative in some ways as well.
Hasn't helped that I've been sick as a dog for the last week and it's not left me with a clear head but I've made some big rewrites that I think won't be too rejected by the readers even if it's a bit more of set up than I might have wanted.