I don't own anything in the Harry Potter universe.
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“Aren’t you taking this seriously boy?” Abe fumed
“Of course I am”why do you think I am here every bloody day?” Harry shot back. “I made a mistake by not practicing that night and now I am paying for it.” Harry looked at the man in front of him, amazed at the change he saw. There were times when Aberforth Dumbledore could look like Albus Dumbledore’s twin. Abe often had the same twinkle in his eye that Professor Dumbledore had had, and he even talked in riddles some of the time. There were other times, however, that Abe looked and acted nothing like the late headmaster. This was one of those times.
It was their first lesson since Harry’s dream two days earlier. Abe’s anger seemed to be barely controlled: his face was red and his eyes blazed in fury. Harry thought he could see the hard edge on the man”the edge that showed he had spent his life working with much less savory members of society than his elder brother had.
“Too many men and women have sacrificed too much for you to throw it away because you aren’t doing what you need to do,” Abe continued with less anger after taking a deep calming breath.
“I know that; I made a mistake. I let my guard down. It won’t happen again.”
“Good, see that it doesn’t or we may have larger problems than you can even understand,” Abe declared. He paused, then continued, “Moody would be so disappointed in you, son.” The twinkle had returned to Abe’s eyes, and Harry knew that the lecture was over for the evening.
“Yeah, I suppose I wasn’t as vigilant as I should have been.” Harry smiled a humorless smile. He knew that Abe had made his point and would not be yelling at him anymore. That just left Harry to make himself feel guilty for his weakness.
“All right, Harry, I think we have dealt with that sufficiently. We need to get to work.”
They worked for an hour. Harry was now able to block Abe completely from his mind. He was also able to connect with Ginny, Ron, and Hermione no matter where in the castle they were. Neville and Luna had to be closer to the Room of Requirement for him to feel their emotions. He was not able to tell where any of his friends were when he was connected, but Abe had told him that eventually he probably would.
Finally they finished working, and Abe stepped into a corner of the room. He lifted a box marked “Cauldrons” off the floor.
“Harry, this is a box of things Mundungus Fletcher”erm”borrowed from the Blacks’ house,” Abe stated, holding the box out for Harry.
“You mean the things he nicked from the house while I was at school last year, don’t you?” Harry replied, glaring at Abe. “I was wondering when I would be getting that stuff back.” He took the box from the old barman.
“Don’t take that tone with me, young man. I paid good money for those things, so that Mundungus wouldn’t try and sell it to some other bloke. Albus seemed to think there may be something important in that junk.” Abe glared back at Harry.
Harry’s anger lessened slightly. “Sorry, Abe, I’m just really tired. Thanks for taking care of this stuff for me.”
“Not at all, Harry, good work this evening. Now go upstairs, and get some rest. I will see you in a couple of days.”
“Thank you, Abe, but aren’t you going to tell me not to forget to practice tonight?” Harry questioned.
“No, no, I think you have learned your lesson, and it was a mistake that you won’t be making again. Good evening,” Abe remarked as he walked out of the room.
Harry walked back into the common room and found it almost deserted. He went up to his dorm and placed the box of Black family trinkets in his trunk, then grabbed his pack and went back down into the common room. He still had a mountain of homework to do. He worked late into the night as the fire in Gryffindor Tower burned low. It was after two in the morning before he finally went to bed.
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September slowly gave way to October. The leaves on the trees of the Forbidden Forest were a brilliant display of color. Reds, oranges, greens, golds and yellows combined to form a fire burst of colors that dazzled the eyes. The overcast autumn sky enhanced the effect. The changing of the seasons, along with the welcome news that attacks had lessened of late, combined to bring an almost festive mood to the castle.
This mood was heightened by the announcement that Quidditch tryouts would be held the first Saturday of the month. The school soon began to buzz with excitement. Even with a war on, there seemed to be nothing of greater importance than who would be the second Beater for Ravenclaw or what the Gryffindor Chasers would be like without Katie Bell.
Harry woke Saturday morning later than the rest of his roommates. He had been up late the night before. Actually, he had been up late every night for a month. He refused to allow himself to go to bed until he was nearly dropping from fatigue, and forced himself to get up as soon as he woke, not letting himself go back to sleep. He had argued with himself that if he was exceptionally tired he wouldn’t dream. It had seemed to work well enough during his fifth year. He still practiced his Occlumency, but he refused to go to bed earlier than one or two in the morning. This new policy had its good points: he was currently completely up to date on his homework, except for a Transfiguration essay he had due Monday. The down side was that he always felt exhausted.
This morning his body refused to wake up before ten and by then everyone was already gone from the room. Harry knew why. I suppose Ron has them flying in circles getting warmed up,he thought.
Ron had continued to argue that Harry should be Captain and should play, but Harry would not be moved. He had too many other things to do. Ron had even gone so far as to talk to McGonagall about it. She also wanted Harry to play.
“But Professor, with N.E.W.T.s, training, and some other things that I can’t talk to you about, I just don’t have time to do it this year. Ron’ll be great”don’t worry, we won’t lose the cup.”
“I am not concerned about some silly trophy, Mr. Potter. One of the last things Albus said in the portion of the will that I saw was that you were to live your life,” McGonagall proclaimed, her eyes growing bright with unshed tears.
“I understand that, Professor, but Quidditch simply isn’t part of my life at the moment,” Harry argued back.
After several minutes of discussion, McGonagall finally relented and ordered Ron to take over as Captain.
Enjoying the comfortable warmth of his bed, Harry raised the walls of his mind and began to reach out to his friends. He could feel Ginny first. She felt nervous. Don’t be nervous, Ginny, you are the best Seeker in the school. You can do this, Harry thought. He almost instantly felt Ginny relax and the exhilaration of flying overwhelmed her. Harry could almost feel the smile that played across her mouth as she soared into the air and started circling the pitch.
Next he reached out to Ron, and tension flooded his mind. Ron seemed to be focusing on everything at once. Harry could feel frustration, then excitement, followed by more frustration. He knew those feelings well”they were his last year while trying out new players. Harry continued the connection for a while, feeling the happiness Ron felt and also the anger. He could not tell what was happening, but after several minutes he decided that the tryouts were not going much better than they had the year before.
Last year was a fiasco. There’d been so many students out there, some of whom weren’t even in Gryffindor”all just to see the famous Harry Potter. It had been a very long morning.
Harry didn’t know why Ron was feeling frustration like this, but he knew that it must not be much fun. He then reached out to Hermione. He could sense her boredom. He knew that she’d never liked Quidditch much, but she’d still been at every game Harry and Ron had ever played. (Well, except the day she and Harry were introduced to Grawp.) Harry marveled at her devotion to her friends. She would willingly sit through the tryouts of a sport she didn’t care about just to be supportive of the people she cared for.
Suddenly the boredom changed to anxiety. Harry felt waves of nervousness and then relief roll through her. Five times the nervous tension would grow and then a wave of relief would come crashing over her. Harry thought he had good idea what was going on. Ron must be trying out for Keeper.Harry smiled, thinking of Ron making himself try out when he was the Captain.
Harry broke the connection, feeling a wave of guilt come crashing down upon him. His friends had not asked him to come to the tryouts, but he knew they would have wanted him there. He just could not bring himself to go. He was growing more depressed over all that the war had taken from him: friends, family, a relationship with Ginny, and now he couldn’t even play Quidditch. Neither can live while the other survives.
He got up and dressed, deciding to go and study in the library for the rest of the morning. He thought he could finish the essay on human Transfiguration while he was there and maybe do some research on Hepzibah Smith and Hufflepuff’s cup.
Hermione had been searching for information on the different possible Horcruxes all summer. She and Harry agreed that if Hufflepuff’s cup was a Horcrux, it was most likely in Hepzibah Smith’s house. They’d found the location of the house during the summer but never had a chance to go search it. The summer had been too busy, and they still didn’t know how to destroy the Horcrux when they found it. Destroying the diary and the snake were really just luck, and Dumbledore had not explained how he’d destroyed the ring. Harry, Ron and Hermione had decided not to risk raising Voldemort’s suspicion until they could find a means of destroying them. Earlier that week, Hermione had stumbled on a possible solution but would not elaborate until she was more positive. This left Harry thinking it was probably time to find the cup.
He walked down the stairs to the common room. There was a commotion in the hall leading to the portrait hole. Several first and second years who had not wanted to attend the tryout were standing in front of the announcement board.
“Another decree from the High Inquisitor?” Harry attempted to joke. All the kids simply stared at him, and he realized that none of these students had been there during the Umbridge reign of stupidity two years earlier. Boy am I getting old.
“Harry, look, there’s going to be some big ceremony during the Halloween feast,” proclaimed a second year that Harry didn’t know. He was impressed that the boy used his first name. Some of the first years had taken to calling him Mr. Potter or simply turning and running away from him when they saw him. “The Ministry’s going to send some representatives, but it doesn’t say what the ceremony is for.”
“Wow, that sounds like fun,” Harry lied. Some ceremony with the Ministry involved was not something that Harry was looking forward to.
He passed the group of excited eleven and twelve year olds and started for the portrait hole. “Bye, Mr. Potter,” giggled a group of first-year girls who were watching him leave. Harry just rolled his eyes and crawled out.
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In conclusion, human Transfiguration, becoming an Animagus, is one of the most difficult of all spells. Not only must one have the ability to cast a Patronus Charm, in order to identify one’s Animagus form, but one must also have the magical ability necessary to fully make the transformation. Finally, one must also have enough concentration to focus wholly on the animal one is to become.
Harry put down his quill and reread his essay. That sounds pretty good to me. I’ll let Hermione look it over later. Harry felt his stomach growl. He looked at his watch and remembered for the thousandth time that it did not work and had not worked since the second task of the Triwizard Tournament. He didn’t wear it to tell time, but to remember his triumphs and failures of that day.
He looked at the clock on the wall. It was two in the afternoon. He had missed lunch. His stomach growled again. Terrific, I already slept through breakfast and now I missed lunch. Harry sat there for a few minutes contemplating what he would do.
“Dobby,” he whispered.
Crack.
“Harry Potter is wanting Dobby, sir?” the house-elf asked with a big grin. It never failed. Whenever Harry wanted or needed something from Dobby, the little house-elf was there, ready to deliver.
“Hi, Dobby, how are you this afternoon?” Harry asked, grinning at the mismatched socks and green sweater with a D sewn onto the chest. Mrs. Weasley had given it to Dobby as a thank you for the help he had provided in the garden at Grimmauld Place.
“Dobby is very well, Harry Potter, sir. Dobby is better than well because the great Harry Potter makes a request of Dobby. What can Dobby do for sir?”
“Dobby, I am going to my room in about twenty minutes. Could you bring me a sandwich or something? I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Harry Potter, sir, it would be my pleasure to bring you whatever you would like. Sir, is your Wheezy going to be there?” Dobby asked.
“I don’t know, Dobby, he should be back from the tryouts so he probably will.” Harry wondered why Dobby was interested in whether or not Ron was going to be in the room.
“Dobby will be bringing some extra sandwiches then, sir,” Dobby said with a smile. He snapped his fingers and Crack, he was gone. Harry smiled at how well Dobby knew Ron.
Harry got up to retrieve a book from the shelves of the library. It was a current events book, written five years previously and enchanted to continuously update itself, which focused on the last twenty years of wizarding history. It was a book that he and Hermione had looked at often, although Harry had avoided the pages dedicated to his first defeat of Voldemort and their subsequent confrontations. He was able to find out that Hepzibah Smith had had no living heirs when she died, and that her house had been purchased by another magical family.
He noticed for the first time that the current owners both worked at the Ministry of Magic. Earl Vanderschamp was currently the Undersecretary of International Magical Cooperation, and his wife Eileen was a member of the Committee for Awarding Orders of Merlin as well as being on the Reversal of Accidental Magic Squad.
He began to make notes on the Ministry officials. The announcement about the ceremony during the Halloween feast had given him an idea. He could go then, after classes. The school would all be occupied with the feast and he could slip away for a couple of hours. Perhaps the couple would be at the ceremony also, and he could get into the house while no one was home. If they were home, who would deny the famous Harry Potter a chance to come in and chat or something. Harry was not sure what he would actually do if they were home, but he figured he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
“What are you working on, Harry?” Hermione asked, sitting at the table.
Harry was startled out of his thoughts and quickly pushed the notes for Hepzibah Smith’s house under his books. “Oh, just finished my Transfiguration essay. Could you take a look at it for me?” he asked, trying to distract Hermione from what he had been working on.
“Yeah, whenever you would like, Harry. I must say that I wish you would have been at the tryouts, but at least you were working on something important and not sleeping all this time,” Hermione commented.
“Yeah, I wanted to come but I just couldn’t, you know,” Harry declared. He handed Hermione his essay and she began reading. Several minutes later she handed it back to him. Harry was surprised to see so few red marks on it.
“Just a couple of grammar issues, nothing major. That was really a good essay, although you may want to say something about what happens when an Animagus’s Patronus changes. It doesn’t happen often, but the Animagus does have to work on the new transformation. They don’t have to start from scratch though, so it’s easier for them to learn the new form,” Hermione explained to him. “But that is all just extra. What you have here would probably get you an E at least,” Hermione complimented him. This was a rare treat lately.
Since Hermione had begun teaching, her eye for detail had grown stronger. She was relentless in checking both Ron’s and his work. Ron didn’t seem to mind, however, since he was getting the best marks he had ever earned at Hogwarts.
“Professor Granger, um, Professor Granger?” a red-haired first-year Ravenclaw boy asked from behind Hermione. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Hermione, I think this young man would like a word,” Harry said, smiling at the thought of Hermione being called Professor.
“I’m sorry?” she replied to Harry in confusion.
“Professor Granger, can I ask you a question?” the boy requested, looking a bit embarrassed.
“Oh dear, yes, Mr. Vendsel.” Hermione turned, finally realizing that he was talking to her. “I told you that you don’t have to call me Professor. Miss Granger is perfectly acceptable.” She was blushing slightly now.
“Yes, Professor”I mean, Miss Granger,” the first year stuttered. “I was wondering if you had marked my essay on transforming small objects into larger objects.”
“Yes, Mr. Vendsel, although I would remind you that class is the time to ask those questions,” Hermione declared. Harry was stunned by the resemblance to Professor McGonagall he saw in her.
“Once again your essay is very good. I did have to take some points, however, because you wrote two feet when I only wanted six inches. Following all the directions is important,” she explained.
“Yes, ma’am,” the boy sighed and stalked away.
“I seem to recall another first year who had trouble keeping essays to their proper length,” Harry grinned at Hermione. She blushed slightly again.
“Yes, and my teacher told me the same thing our first year,” she smiled back. “That young man is going to be a very good wizard someday. He’s brilliant. He always seems to get the spell on the first or second try.”
“Sounds like a friend of mine.” Harry got up to leave. “You coming?”
“No, I have some papers to grade,” Hermione said with a sigh. “I’ll see you guys at dinner.”
Harry walked out of the library. He was halfway back to Gryffindor Tower when he realized he hadn’t put his library books away.
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Entering the common room, Harry once again found a commotion in front of the message board. This time, however, it was a group of fifth- and sixth-year girls reading the announcement about the Halloween feast. The talk amongst the girls quickly moved from speculation about the ceremony to a discussion of what they would wear and who they would go with.
Harry puzzled over this, since the announcement didn’t say anything about dress or dates. This wasn’t like the Yule Ball. It was just the Halloween Feast.
“Well, I know who I am going with,” Romilda Vane stated with confidence. “One way or another. Oh, Neville,” she yelled as Neville walked down the stairs. Harry watched as Neville was quickly surrounded by five girls all talking at once. He turned scarlet and rushed back up to his dorm room. Harry thought Neville had better watch out for Chocolate Cauldrons laced with Love Potions in the future.
Maneuvering around the group of girls, and hearing the now familiar, “Hi Harry,” from several of them, Harry started for the fireplace. Harry was still the most eligible bachelor in Gryffindor. The news that he and Ginny were no longer together had spread quickly once things settled down. Neither of them explained why they had broken up, so the rumors were running rampant about it.
Harry found Ron sitting in one of the squishy armchairs in front of the fire. He had a stack of parchment on his lap and seemed to be working over it feverishly.
“Hey, Ron, how did tryouts go?”
“Rubbish, Harry, it was all rubbish,” Ron replied. He leaned closer to Harry, who sat in the chair next to him. “Well, maybe it’s not that bad. Our Seeker is pretty good. Ginny outflew everyone, although I don’t think she was really happy about getting the position. She doesn’t really like Seeker. I’m still the Keeper and I did pretty well today. The Chasers are a mess though, and don’t get me started on the Beaters.” Ron flopped back in exasperation.
“So what is all this?” Harry inquired. He knew that things were not that bad with the team and that Ron was only stressing due to his new responsibilities.
“Oh, this is our new game plan for Ravenclaw and the training schedule. Between the DA and classes, I don’t think we can be ready for the game in a month,” Ron sighed.
“You’ll do fine, Ron. Don’t worry about it. Now let’s go upstairs. Dobby is bringing us some sandwiches,” Harry stated, getting up from his chair.
“Great, I’m starving,” Ron exclaimed as he followed Harry out of the common room.
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At twelve thirty Harry sat alone in the common room pretending to read his Charms book. The book sat in front of him but the words didn’t meet his eyes. He had noticed that from this particular couch he could see the eternal blue flame that rose from Dumbledore’s tomb by the lake. Harry hadn’t noticed it during the funeral, but when the white fire erupted around Dumbledore’s body, this single flame remained after the rest had gone out. It was a single testament to the fact that Dumbledore would never really be gone from Hogwarts, as long as the people there stayed loyal to his vision. As Harry sat there staring at it, a flood of emotions came to him.
He thought of the night in the cave, watching Dumbledore drink that poison as he, Harry, had to feed it to him. He saw in his mind’s eye the body that lay on the ground at the base of the Astronomy Tower. He remembered Dumbledore eating an ear wax flavored Every Flavor Bean after Harry had saved the Philosopher’s Stone.
Harry was startled out of his reverie by the movement of a small animal coming down the stairs. It was a small, orange, tiger-striped cat, slightly smaller than Crookshanks and twice as attractive, which wasn’t saying much. The cat lazily walked down the stairs. It seemed to wander for about ten minutes before making its way to the only warm body in the room.
Harry sat on the couch and watched. This had become a nightly ritual for about a week and a half. He would sit and do his homework, or read, or just stare out a window. The cat would come down and wander for a while before finally deciding it would condescend to allow Harry to pet it.
The cat jumped onto the couch and meowed at Harry as it walked over to him. It stretched and then balled itself up on his lap. Harry began to scratch the cat behind its ears and felt a small purr in response.
“Here again?” Harry commented to the cat. “I wish I knew which first-year girl brought you here. She might like to know that you are seeing me on the side, or that you go wandering at night like this.” The cat continued to raise its neck into Harry’s hand as he absentmindedly stroked it, taking comfort in the warm ball of fur now resting on his lap.
Harry closed his eyes and built the walls in his mind. He reached out to each of his friends, who were all contentedly relaxed or dreaming away in sleep. I may have to tell Hermione about that dream Ron is having, Harry mused with a grin. He then laid his head back and relaxed, allowing the comfort and contentment of his friends wash over him. It was not long before he was asleep.
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A/N: Well I certainly hope you enjoyed this chapter. If you did, let me know. If you didn’t, let me know what you didn’t like.
As always, thanks need to go out to Kerrbear and Cableguysmom for their help with prebeta stuff, and JenC for doing a wonderful job making the story read well. Thanks ladies.
Up Next, the Rumor Mill get cranked up and Harry announces his decision.