Disclaimer: Amelia Bones belongs to JK Rowling.

A/N: For the record, I never intended to have these pages be skipped in the public reading. This was part of my plan from as soon as I wrote Tonks's chapter.

Update: So, I don't like the thing where people will go back and spam a bunch of re-uploads that look like new chapter alerts, but aren't, but I've finally encountered a situation where it needed to be done, and at least there's only two of them. I got halfway through Chapter 18 of PoA when I realised my outline was just not going to work with the reading order I was using, so I had to go back and rewrite Chapter 17 and this chapter to fix it.

The main change in this chapter is specifically in the second scene, where Harry is talking to McGonagall and Bones, although I made some small revisions to the reading section. The next chapter was completely rewritten. I also made a minor edit to the previous chapter—nothing you can't figure out by reading this one, but just so you're aware.

Chapter 14 and 3/4: McGonagall

The Lost Pages

Thursday, March 21, 1996.

"Well, it's a 'good news-bad news' sort of day, isn't it?" Amelia Bones said to herself. Dumbledore's latest report on the book reading was short, but impactful. He had a reliable lead on a second horcrux, this time including a detailed account of the protections on it. Unfortunately, it was in an underground lake accessible only by a tiny boat that could only hold one "adult" wizard (she wasn't sure she wanted to know how he knew that); it also required drinking several quarts of a dark potion to retrieve, and it was guarded by an "army" of Inferi that would attack if anyone did anything wrong. He again recommended waiting for further information on the other horcruxes to act, despite the detailed account of this one, to which she reluctantly agreed, if only because of the "one adult wizard" bit. That would need strategising to do at all safely.

Percy Weasley's report from the public reading was longer and highlighted yet more safety issues in the school during the manhunt for Black. Specifically called out were a lax attitude toward the secret passages into the castle, including ones the staff did know about at the time, and physical and emotional safety concerns relating to the lack of a formal complaint process against teachers and student officers. (And the idiot guard on the Gryffindor dorms, but that was a special case.) He also detailed a minor fight between Auror Tonks and Professor Snape, which she'd have to have a talk with Tonks about.

But most seriously, Weasley mentioned that there were hints in the book that all was not as it seemed regarding Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew, as Dumbledore had been saying for the past two years. And that was the last confirmation she needed. Since today was expected to be the climax of the book, she had already cleared her schedule to go up to the school and hear it in person.

Harry stopped by the Head's Office again before going down to breakfast. Upon being admitted by the gargoyle, he made his way inside, saying, "Professor, I finished the book last night, and—oh, Director Bones?"

Sure enough, Amelia Bones was in the office alongside Headmistress McGonagall as they pored over a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, speaking softly to each other. Both of them looked up at him when he spoke.

"Yes, Mr. Potter, I decided to come in person for the final reading. If what you and Professor Dumbledore say is true, it will save time."

"Oh. Thank you for coming, then, ma'am."

"Did you need to speak with the Headmistress?" Bones asked.

"Er, yes, ma'am, I…"

"Potter asked to read ahead in the book so that we can remove any particularly private or embarrassing material from the public reading," McGonagall explained. "You'll recall there were some issues with that in the second book, not to mention yesterday. I take it you are ready, Potter?"

"Yes, Professor," Harry handed her the book. "Although there was one thing…" He hesitated. He wasn't expecting Madam Bones to be here. This would be harder to justify with her in the room, since he didn't want to give anything away to her if he didn't have to. "The thing is, we got in a couple pretty big fights with Snape in the book."

"Professor Snape, Potter," McGonagall interrupted.

"Right, him. And some of the other stuff is about him, to. I just didn't want what he did to be swept under the rug because he was after Remus, not just Sirius, and he wasn't listening to any of us, and—"

"You do you realise Professor Snape will be reading a chapter today?" she interrupted again.

"Yes, Professor, and that was the other thing. There was some stuff in his chapter that I crossed out, and I'm worried about him following that. After, er, yesterday, I wanted to be more careful and make sure that was really clear. So…I was wondering if you could just skip him in the reading order?"

McGonagall gave Harry a stern look. "Is there a particular reason you think you think this material is so sensitive? I should think Professor Snape would hold to a higher standard of professionalism than that."

"Er, sorry, but you weren't there that night, Professor," Harry insisted. "I'd never seen Snape like that before—or since." Harry didn't dare look at Madam Bones, though out of the corner of his eye, he saw her raise an eyebrow. This was exactly what he was worried about. If she had enough thread to pull to find out about Remus's school activities, this whole mess could get away from him. It was still probably fifty-fifty regardless, if he were honest with himself, but he had to try. "I was kind of scary, to be honest. He has a history with Sirius and Remus you know, and the book talks a lot about Remus's history that he doesn't deserve to have aired out in public, so…"

Then Madam Bones spoke up: "This is Lupin's history as a werewolf, Mr Potter?"

Harry managed not to flinch. "Yes, ma'am."

"Of course, I can understand your wish not to give him any more grief than necessary. I can leave this up to the Headmistress, but you realise skipping over Professor Snape will raise questions of its own?"

"I know, ma'am, but still…" Harry said.

McGonagall thought for a moment and said, "Just one question, Potter. The problem is with Professor Snape's chapter? Is that with or without the missing pages I recovered yesterday?"

He blinked. "Oh, the missing pages? I forgot about those. Er…" He double-checked the table of contents. "I suppose without, Professor."

"And the chapter before that one?"

"That's…" He thought back to the redactions he'd made to the first chapter. It would be unpleasant if Snape didn't follow them, but not catastrophic—and they weren't about Sirius and Remus. "Well, there's still stuff I crossed out, but it's not that big a deal."

"Then that is easily enough solved," she said. "I will simply hand the book off to Professor Snape immediately after the missing pages, and I will ensure he knows to remain professional about the reading. Mind you, I still don't think it's truly necessary, Potter, but I can agree it will probably be easier for everyone involved."

"Thank you, Professor," he told her. It would have to be good enough.

"For the moment, I have more to discuss with Director Bones. You can go along to breakfast," McGonagall dismissed him.

"Your attention please," McGonagall called to the Great Hall at the end of breakfast. "Thank you for your patience one last time. And welcome back to Amelia Bones, the Ministry of Magic's Director of Magical Law Enforcement, who has returned for today's reading. We are now ready for the final day of reading," she said, putting as much emphasis on the word "final" as she could manage.

"However, before we return to the book where we left off, I wish to revisit the incident that occurred yesterday. You will recall that due to a series of poor decisions, a number of pages from the book were destroyed. By a fortunate coincidence, I was able to acquire a copy of the missing pages from the book." Snape spun around to look at her with shock mingled with a warning glare, while excited whispers began to build from the rest of the Hall. "I also did what I should have done before and made a copy of the book to avoid any future mishaps." Really, she should have just renewed the conjured copy she had made for Potter to read rather than copying his annotations, she thought. It would have lasted long enough for the reading. "Since some of our students were rather insistent in asking," she continued, "we will cover these pages before continuing with the story. And since some of our teachers had difficulties with this yesterday…" She looked down the table at Tonks. "I will be reading them with the proper standards of professionalism. And I expect all those reading today to behave similarly." She gave a meaningful look to Severus. Meanwhile, the more vocal students groaned in disappointment at missing out. "You will recall that this was immediately after Professor Snape confiscated Potter's map of the school. Ahem…"

Skipping the final insult from the Marauder's Map, she began reading: "Harry waited for the blow to fall.

"So…," said Snape softly. "We'll see about this…"

Snape, enraged, had summoned Lupin by Floo and interrogated him with what McGongall—and also Harry down at the Gryffindor Table—now recognised as thinly-veiled accusations—quite reasonable under the circumstances—that Harry must have got the Map from Lupin himself. They both denied it, Harry honestly, and Lupin covering for him by claiming it was a Zonko's product. Then, Ron ran up, out of breath, and said the same (if far less convincingly).

After getting rid of Snape, Lupin confronted Harry and Ron, saying they should have turned the Map in, especially after what happened with Sirius and the passwords. McGonagall of course skipped the most personal parts—the parts Harry had crossed out—where Remus had berated him for gambling his parents' sacrifice.

That still stung two years later, Harry thought, though for different reasons. It stung now because he knew Sirius was innocent. It stung because he'd been exposed to so much more "Keep your head down and be good," this year without being told why, and he was fed up with it. And at the same time, it stung because he knew Remus was right. He'd thought Sirius was out to kill him at the time, and he could've been waiting for him the minute he stepped outside the castle (in fact, he kind of was, with what happened at the end of that year), so he really shouldn't have been wandering off like that. Even so, it still felt like a low blow on Remus's part.

But as far as anyone else heard from the book, Remus simply took the Map with an admonishment to be more careful and let them go, and they were soon distracted by Hermione's news that Buckbeak was going to be executed.

McGonagall flipped a page: "Chapter Fifteen: The Quidditch Final."

Hagrid had sent the trio a tear-stained letter with the news. Harry protested, but Hermione was resigned. At the time, even she hadn't had any hope for the automatic appeal.

"'Malfoy's dad frightened the committee into it,' said Hermione, wiping her eyes. 'You know what he's like. They're a bunch of doddery old fools, and they were scared.'"

The real Hermione blushed. It was quite another thing to hear her words repeated in front of Ministry officials, even if they were true.

In the book, Hermione hugged Ron forcefully when he offered to help with the appeal, much to Ron's alarm, which only made her blush harder. On the bright side, the two of them did reconcile about Scabbers. They both pledged to help Hagrid with Buckbeak's appeal, though they now knew from their discussion last night that it was effectively a lost cause.

Malfoy, of course, took the opportunity to gloat.

"'Have you ever seen anything quite as pathetic?' said Malfoy. 'And he's supposed to be our teacher!'

"Harry and Ron both made furious moves toward Malfoy, but Hermione got their first—SMACK!'"

The school jumped as McGonagall shouted the sound effect. She hadn't been acting out the reading dramatically for the most part, but it seemed appropriate in that case. The students laughed when they pieced together what happened: Hermione had finally lost her temper and slapped Malfoy across the face.

"'Don't you dare call Hagrid pathetic, you foul—you evil—'"

At the Slytherin Table, the real Malfoy turned red and glared around him, but he knew he was outnumbered. Most of the students, even some of the Slytherins, were happy to see him get his comeuppance. The Hermione in the book was done with him. Not only did she slap Malfoy, she would have punched and hexed him too if Harry and Ron hadn't stopped her. It was even enough to make her care about Quidditch.

"I should stress that any fighting of that sort will be disciplined properly if it is found out," McGonagall said lightly, as much for Madam Bones's benefit as the students'.

Hermione paled. "Harry, you should have taken that out!" she hissed.

"No way," Ron defended him. "That was too good to pass up."

"However, as with the previous books, we do not need to revisit disciplinary matters from past years," McGonagall continued.

Ron gave Hermione a look that said see? And Harry said, "Yeah, we knew they were going to stick to that." Hermione glared at them.

Too quietly for the students to hear, McGonagall added to herself, "And Merlin knows those three have done worse things in these books."

In the book, however, Hermione's woes were not over, as she was driven to such exhaustion that she slept through Charms class, even with what they now knew was the help of her Time Turner.

"Sounds like you really were working too hard," Dean told her. "I mean, getting extra hours in a day? It had to've thrown off your sleep. Or—why not just use it to get more sleep?"

"I couldn't!" Hermione hissed. "Professor McGonagall told me it was strictly for classes. Besides, I couldn't make sure I wasn't seen if I was asleep."

"And that was better than driving yourself mad," Dean retorted.

"Well, that's why I gave the Time Turner back at the end of the year."

"How much time did you gain that year, anyway? I assume that still counts toward your age, you know?"

"Not legally, but yes, it does," Hermione said. "It's not as much as it sounds. I'm not sure exactly, but it wasn't more than a month."

"Your birthday's in September. If it were legal, you could move up a year."

She thought about that for a minute. "Maybe," she said. "It probably adds up to enough days…but if we're playing that game, I also lost three weeks when I was petrified. Honestly, it's easier to just follow the calendar unless there's a good reason."

In the story, Hermione only got more abrasive. After sleeping through Charms and losing her temper in Divination, Professor Trelawney was finally fed up with her sniping: "'Indeed, I don't remember ever meeting a student whose mind was so hopelessly mundane.'"

Hermione still went red as she remembered that, and redder at the giggling from her roommates, among others. In the book, as they recalled, she did the most un-Hermione-ish thing imaginable and stormed out of the class. Then she dropped her forehead to the table when Lavender remembered that it fulfilled one of Trelawney's predictions.

By that point in the story, tensions were high all over the school. Half the students were freaking out about exams, and Oliver Wood was freaking out about Quidditch and dragging the whole team along with him, since this was his last chance to win the Quidditch Cup (and impress the talent scouts). Though he did have a point in ordering the Gryffindors to protect Harry so that he didn't suffer an unfortunate "accident" before the match.

"Harry slept badly. First he dreamed that he had overslept, and that Wood was yelling, 'Where were you? We had to use Neville instead!'"

The students laughed, but Neville was a good sport about it. "I think I'd be even more horrified than you," he said.

"Then he dreamed that Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin team arrived to the match riding dragons. He was flying at breakneck speed, trying to avoid a spurt of flames from Malfoy's steed's mouth, when he realised he had forgotten his Firebolt. He fell through the air and woke with a start."

"Oh, that was great! That was some cartoon logic, there," said Dean.

"At least we know you can outfly a dragon now, Harry," Ron added.

"Very funny, guys," Harry grumbled.

McGonagall cleared her throat and said, "And that brings up to where we picked up again yesterday, so we have covered everything for those who wanted to hear it. Now, we will resume with the remaining chapters of the book. Professor Snape, I will leave the first full chapter to you." She handed him the book.