Chương 1088: 6
Chapter 6: Back in Black
The classes continued as usual. Herbology was just as mundane, Astronomy just as pointless and History just as boring as they were in the previous two years. Potions became much more tolerable because of Harry's new view of Snape – but not for long. As much as the boy hated the greasy git, even he had to grudgingly admit (when there was no chance anyone other than Ron and Hermione would hear him saying that) that the man was as sharp as goblin steel – it looked like he figured out exactly why the boys of the trio were sometimes smiling slightly during his lessons and his usual verbal abuse nearly tripled. Harry's temper, barely restrained in the past, just couldn't take the sheer amount of shit Snape spewed at him and as the result he often found himself enjoyinghis tender care during his many detentions. The only upside of the situation is that Harry learned to somewhat calm himself when Snape was in the immediate vicinity and baiting him as usual by tuning out the world as he used to do when Dudley and his gang would catch him in a game of 'Harry Hunting'. It would slightly mute the pain from the blows, and Harry learned that it was somewhat effective against Snape's taunting.
Defence against the Dark Arts continued to be flawlessly taught. None of Harry's fears were realized yet, which suited him and his friends just fine. The most pleasant surprise came when Lupin let it slip that he was a close friend of Harry's parents. The boy was damn near ecstatic to hear anything about them and Lupin gladly shared a great deal of stories about Lily and James.
Arithmancy was just as mentally exhausting as they thought. A lot of times Harry had to repeat the mantra 'Spell creation, custom magic' to hold himself from slacking and do the damn homework – professor Vector was a real taskmaster.
As was professor Babbling, apparently. Although Harry would gladly say that Runes homework was much more enjoyable – as most of it was drawing Rune atlases, which were essentially the personal reference sources for the whole course. Babbling even told them that those who pursue careers in the fields that apply Runes on a frequent basis use their school atlases all their lives, adding to them constantly. For some reason Harry liked writing in his atlas, making it as neat as possible, drawing the runes as precisely as he could. He even looked up spells to make the writing better. The sight of his usual nearly incomprehensible scrawls transforming into neat lines was very satisfying, and when he showed the spell to Hermione she squealed. Obviously, later on she would deny it.
Professor Babbling, while an absolute genius was obviously not completely there. Often she would go on a different tangent right in the middle of the lesson, sometimes explaining things about how the subject of that particular class could be used to improve some or other charm or transfiguration and other times muttering to herself about materiel that Hermione suspected to be Mastery level. But Harry didn't mind – she was a brilliant teacher and her explanations (when they were understandable) were eye-opening, not to mention full of witty remarks. Her other quirk was that she never called a person by his name, only using nicknames. For example, she called Hermione ' "Curly", which aggravated the girl something fierce. Ron was "Gangly" while Harry was "Green Eyes" – a tolerable nickname all-in-all.
One day, Hermione dragged Harry and Ron to a deserted classroom.
"Harry," she said seriously. "I want you to try casting spells in Parseltongue."
"What? Now?" Harry looked at her, bemused.
"Yes. I've searched the library on the subject and there were some clues that Parselmouths were all very strong wizards. It won't hurt, will it?" Harry gulped slightly – Hermione had that glint in her eyes that reminded him of Wood when he was speaking about Quidditch. That girl and her curiosity...
The boy shrugged and took his wand out. His first impulse was to try and say the Latin spells in Parseltongue, but he quickly understood the stupidity in the idea of just hissing the usual spells. Then he tried to simply say different words such as Open, Light,etc. He had little success right until Hermione reminded him that the spells required intent to work. After that... well.
Harry said "Light" while concentrating on a picture of a small orb of luminescence appearing on the end of his wand. He got a feeling that something was very wrong when he felt burning in his right hand that was clutching his wand.
The burning spread to his shoulder and upper chest and quickly grew unbearable. Harry grunted and tried to drop his wand, but the stick of holly was stuck to his hand. In five seconds after he attempted to do the spell he couldn't hold in a whimper of pain.
The burning in his arm flared and suddenly vanished. Harry gasped in relief, but then he had to shield his eyes with a hiss when the whole classroom was bathed in brilliant light.
When the light subsided, Hermione ran to the fallen figure of her friend and quickly checked up his condition.
"Is he all right?" Ron asked worriedly, kneeling near them. The girl bit her lip, looking at the small trickle of blood coming from Harry's right nostril.
"I don't know! This was not supposed to happen... Let's get him to Madam Pomfrey, quickly!"
Five minutes later saw them levitating Harry's unconscious form through the Hospital wing's door.
"Madam Pomfrey!" Hermione called, carefully dropping Harry on the closest bed. A racket was heard from the matron's office and it opened, showing an irate matron, carrying a huge box.
"What? What did you all do to yourselves this time?" she asked grumpily, carefully placing the box on the floor with a soft clanking indicating the potions inside.
"It's Harry. We were trying to figure out if he could cast in Parseltongue and he just collapsed!" Hermione said in a slight panic. Pomfrey growled slightly, walking to the bed and drawing her wand.
"Kids these days, experimenting with ancient languages, in your third year, no less! It's a wonder I still have not gone grey..."
She started to mutter spells under her breath. After verifying something, she nodded to herself and went to the closest potion cabinet. She grabbed a bottle of murky brown liquid and shook Harry awake.
"Wha..." that was as far as Harry got before Pomfrey showed a large spoon of the potion down his throat. The boy gulped it down obediently and started coughing.
"Each time I wonder," he wheezed, "If potions could get any nastier. Each time you prove that they, in fact, can. Would it kill you to make them neutral-tasting?"
Pomfrey scoffed and put the potion in the shelf.
"Would it kill you to keep yourself out of my wing?" she asked dryly. Harry shrugged sheepishly.
"Touché."
"You have managed to harm your circulatory system, a rather common symptom of magical overload. You shouldn't have tried to channel that much magic, it's rather surprising how little damage there is!" Pomfrey harrumphed. "You have gotten away with a little scare, so don't go and experiment with such things at least until you are of age!"
Harry nodded and flexed his arm carefully.
"Very well. For how long am I to stay here?"
"I should hold you here for a week for this stunt, but you will probably escape on the second day so I won't even bother. Begone with you, shoo!" she waved at him and walked away. Harry looked at her, bewildered, then shook his head and decided not to question his good luck.
Soon after that, the trio was writing an essay for McGonagall. The transfiguration theory that they were learning wasn't very hard – a damn lot of it was just common sense – but the sheer amount of what they needed to memorize was sometimes overwhelming. Very soon after the year started they learned to hate the small differences between inanimate-to-animate transfigurations, which made the most of what they were expected to learn. Fortunately, the other teachers were giving slightly less homework than usual.
It was this little mercy that allowed Harry to practice Quidditch – even though it wasn't with the team. In the beginning of the term Wood and Harry bashed heads over the latter's complete refusal to wake up obscenely early Sunday morning to practice after a late night of doing Runes homework. Long story short, Harry managed to persuade Wood to let him practice in his own time because of the usual lack of interaction between the Seeker and the rest of the team during the game. Sometimes he would go to the pitch just as the five disgruntled, tired students and Wood (who somehow was still energetic) were leaving it. The team would give him loathing glances of betrayal and comment on how they had to wake up in four hours in bloody morning and train in cold and/or rain while Harry had his beauty sleep. He didn't take offence – they said it without any substantial heat, just to whine a bit and discharge some of the stress, so he wasn't particularly opposed – there was no harm in letting the his teammates grumble.
The time until the first match of the year – which was between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff – flew right past them, and before Harry knew it, he stood beside Wood on the Quidditch pitch and was melancholically pondering just how many Pepper-up potions Pomfrey would have to administer when half the school inevitably came down with a severe cold.
"Well, we'll just have to prove that we can fly despite the weather," he heard Wood mumble and looked at him in abject horror and resignation.
"Ollie, please tell me you don't actually plan to play in this weather. I mean, really, it's past the cats and dogs phase, it's already raining cows and bears!"
"Gryffindor will never forfeit while I'm the captain!" Oliver called back. In his eyes danced the familiar sparks of maniacal determination. Harry sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation and mumbled:
"Mutiny starts to sound really good…"
His gut told him that it wouldn't end well.
Two hours later
"Harry? You okay?"
The boy groaned and tried to open his eyes. Wait bad idea. He shut them again with a hiss of pain and croaked:
"Somebody dim the freaking lights!"
There was a rustle and he felt the lighting dimming and becoming tolerable.
"Water," he managed to say. A cup materialized near his mouth and he immediately emptied it. After that Harry squinted at his surroundings: Hospital wing. Why, oh why am I not surprised?
"How are you feeling? Do you need anything?"
"Feeling like someone stole my muscles and put a lot of jelly inside me instead," he mumbled irritably, scratching his head. "Now, I'm blind as a mole, and only see some bunches of colour that talk to me in kind voices, so could somebody give me my blasted glasses? Thank you," he took the offered spectacles and immediately put them on.
The spots on sticks around him came to focus, and he found myself in company of Ron, Hermione and the Gryffindor Quidditch team bar Oliver.
"Where's Ollie? And what happened to the game?"
The twins winced at the same time.
"Well, after Dumbledore caught you when you fell and somehow banished all of the dementors, it appeared that Diggory caught the Snitch," Alicia said apologetically.
"Dementors. Damn, now I remember. How and why did they get here?"
Inwardly, he was caught between seething at his weakness and shuddering in remembrance. Outwardly, he was just very grumpy.
"No one knows. If you ask me, they felt they could have a good ol' British breakfast," Fred smiled in dark humour.
"Nevertheless, we lost 210 to 170," George shrugged, "And Ollie currently is trying to drown himself in the showers,"
Harry shook his head.Trust Oliver to try something that drastic when Quidditch doesn't go as planned.
"Well, tell him that it was the sole time I didn't get the Snitch, soul-sucking demons or not," he said firmly. Twins grinned and shared a look.
"Gryffindors don't die…"
"We go to hell to regroup," Harry finished, grinning weakly. He sighed and cracked his neck.
"Ah. Damn. Who has my Nimbus?"
"Erm… Harry? Your broom… well…" Hermione stammered. He looked at her.
"Yes? What is it?"
"It crashed into the Whomping Willow, and… you see," she sighed and pointed to a bundle of twigs in the corner of the room. The boy looked at it and did a double-take, feeling a sharp pain in his heart. His Nimbus 2000, his broom, was absolutely destroyed. He shakily rose from his bed to look closer – pointless, really, but he felt that for some reason he had to do it.
Unfortunately, madam Pomfrey chose that exact moment to come bustling to his bed, shoo his friends and tell the boy in no uncertain terms that he had to remain in bed for another day. Harry knew that resistance would be futile and resigned himself to being bored out of his mind for more than 24 hours.
"So, you want to learn the spell that adult Aurors are struggling with?" Lupin asked, with raised eyebrows. Harry nodded jerkily, and the professor sighed.
"Harry, I commend you for your determination, but we are talking about a spell far out of your league."
Harry gave him a hard look.
"Please, professor. If you will not teach me, I will study it on my own, which will probably double the time I need to learn it. I wantto learn it, and Iwill."
After a long pause Lupin said:
"Very well, Harry, you have proven your point. Come here at five on Tuesday for your first lesson," he smiled with a slightly nostalgic look on his face, "Lily would be so pleased that you try to learn as much as you can."
Harry couldn't help but smile at the mention of his mother. However, he quickly sobered.
"It is not learning for learning's sake, I'm not a Ravenclaw by any means. I simply need to know how to deal with the dementors. Otherwise I wouldn't touch such a high-level spell with a ten-meter pole – I'm not nearly as arrogant as Snape portrays me, you know."
On this, the boy left the chuckling teacher alone.
The next weeks proved themselves even more frantic than before. On the top of the regular homework, which slowly grew to the size that slightly scared Harry and depressed Ron, Harry had the Patronus training with Lupin. The spell proved to be extremely difficult – even more so than he had thought previously. Whatever he did, he just couldn't do anything better than small wisps of silver mist, and it took him eight hours of practice to get even there! Lupin commented that he needed a powerful happy memory to do the charm, but Harry didn't have any memories of even remotely happy moments that he hadn't tried already.
When he looked up the books on Patronus charm in the library, he found out the requirement was not a happy memory – the emotion itself was. The memory was needed to create the emotion, and so it had to be strong enough to make a person happy just by remembering it. The charm creates a guardian against darkness, its power is given to it by emotion the caster felt, and its form is a representation of what or whom the caster trusts to defend him. Harry briefly wondered what his Patronus would look like. Whom do I trust? Who I believe can protect me? Dumbledore, maybe? If so, what would the animalistic representation of the quirky headmaster be? Harry snorted at the memory of someone from Slytherin calling Dumbledore an "old goat".
Nevertheless, after a long session of soul-searching, Harry had to admit to himself that he didn't have any memories that were powerful enough. His upbringing with Dursleys wasn't exactly a thing he would remember fondly, and any memories of his time at Hogwarts either weren't powerful enough, or was tainted by a close brush with death. However, the boy believed that he could compensate for the lack of emotion with the power he put into the spell. That caused a lot of trouble with Hermione – she would put up a fuss every time Harry returned to the Gryffindor tower completely and utterly exhausted and barely able to move after his study sessions with Lupin. Despite this, he knew he had to continue training – and his method proved to be at least partially effective, when the silvery wisps started to intensify and become a Protego-like shield, which, from Lupin's words, was the most powerful form of non-corporeal Patronus. After a couple of seconds of though, he added that during one of the skirmishes during the Blood War he saw a Patronus cast by Dumbledore that appeared to be a wave of power that crashed into the dementor ranks, immediately forcing them into panicked retreat. That seemed to be a Patronus of third level of power.
Meanwhile, Black had somehow managed to enter the castle and had attempted to get into the Gryffindor common room while the Halloween feast was underway. When the Fat Lady refused him entry, he slashed her portrait, scaring her half to death, if that phrase can be used when talking about a painting. She refused to guard Gryffindor tower while Black was still on the loose, and so the Gryffindors had to put up with her successor – one Sir Cadogan. The knight was irritating on a good day and positively intolerable on a bad one. The sheer stupidity of the things he spouted was astounding.
On the fine evening of the first of December Harry was pacing in his dorm like a caged lion, trying to breathe deeply and stay calm. For the whole day it seemed as if the whole sodding castle decided to irritate him as much as possible – Malfoy muttered obscenities at his back, Ron ate as disgustingly as he could, Hermione was bossier than usual, Cadogan didn't open the damn portrait for five minutes despite them saying the password, much preferring to lecture Harry on the knight's honour (he stopped when Harry, being at the end of his admittedly short patience, threatened him to permanently vanish his "honour" if he didn't open right now). In addition, upon entering the trio were immediately approached by Colin Creevey, who wished to take a couple of photos. Harry usually tried to tolerate the guy – the boy's obvious crush on him was creepy as hell, but Colin was relatively harmless. Today, though, he just couldn't hold it in and told Colin in no uncertain terms that "I don'tdo photos and if you ask me one more time I will stuff your blasted camera up your arse and heat it up beforehand so that you wouldn't enjoy it". Then he stormed up to his dorm to try to calm down, ignoring everyone in the common room.
After Harry chilled out somewhat, he decided to go and take a long shower, hoping that hot water would help. It did, and he was soaking there for a long time – he even nodded off while standing for half an hour. After waking up he thought that enough was enough and went to bed. He walked to the door of his dorm, not paying any mind to the fact that it was open (it was never open).
Harry entered, yawning, and paused a couple of steps in with his mouth still open, staring at the back of an unknown person standing right next to Ron's bed.
"Who're you?"
The person whirled around, showing to Harry the face that he saw in the newspapers.
Sirius Black.
For an infinitely long moment the boy and the convict stared at each other. Then Black snarled and lunged at Harry. The boy jumped to the side with a yelp and fell on the floor near Neville's bed.
However, it seemed that Black didn't want to eviscerate Harry, as the boy thought, but just to leave. He paused to open the half-closed door, and Harry seized the moment to throw the first thing that he could grab at the man, namely, an empty pot that was all that was left after a long-term experiment of Neville went wrong. The plant he had been grooming for about a year grew up, became purple, and after an introduction to a magical fertilizer of some kind, started to produce greenish fumes that made people woozy. Obviously, Neville had to get rid of it, but the pot still remained in the dorm for some reason.
Nevertheless, the man ran out of the dorm room with the pot rapidly gaining on him. A 'thunk' and a string of loud curses that quickly lost volume told Harry that he managed to score a hit, not that it managed to do any good. The boy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose at the sound of the sleepy grumbles of his dorm-mates, who were woken up by the racket.
"What… Who was that? Harry?" Ron was still rubbing his eyes and tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Harry's cold reply, however, immediately woke him up.
"Black. It was Black."
As he was lying in the Great Hall, Harry thoughtfully stared at the ceiling that showed the cloudy night sky.How was Black even able to enter the castle? The portrait was explained – poor Nev normally couldn't remember the passwords, and that was before Cadogan came along changing them frequently and without warning. So he had somehow managed to convince the mad portrait to give him a list of the passwords for the week. And Black had somehow managed to get his hands on that list.
But how did he get to the portrait?!
Harry turned to the right and stared at the snoozing silhouette that was Ron.
Theory number one: there was a secret tunnel. An entrance that was unknown to the staff and therefore unguarded. Knowing what I know about Black, it is possible. Lupin let it slip that the Marauders knew the school better than anyone. Maybe Black had found an entrance he never told his friends about?
Theory number two: hiding in plain sight. I'm not sure if he has a wand, but surely there must be charms that would allow him to enter the castle without anyone the wiser – he could transfigure himself into something and let a student bring him to school from Hogsmeade… or use an illusion of some sort.
Harry winced at a particularly loud snore and turned to the other side.
Theory number three: a mole. He may have an ally inside the castle. Lupin, maybe? No, he's too obvious. But maybe he plays on it – no one would suspect the most suspicious, after all. But then, maybe not… Argh, nothing is certain…
He couldn't fall asleep until long after that, and his sleep was troubled.
The next day, he was on his way from Arithmancy, Hermione and Ron walking beside him and arguing over his head about something that he frankly didn't even bother to listen to – just tuned them out from the very beginning. Harry believed Ron started this particular row by asking the question he asked after every other class:
"Why did I pick Arithmancy?"
Of course, Hermione took offence to that, as she always did. In his moments of weakness Harry silently agreed with Ron, and seeing that he was currently nursing a headache it certainly qualified as such.
"Hey, Potter!"
The migraine has just increased. Malfoy didn't bother the trio overly much after the confrontation on train. Figures that he had to do it when Harry was cranky.
"What is it, Malfoy? I'm not in any mood to talk to you, not that thereisany mood for it," the boy said, ruffling his hair and rubbing his forehead discreetly. Malfoy smirked.
"Well, I wondered what were you thinking about Black and if you wanted to get revenge on him."
Harry looked at him as if he had grown another head. If the blonde wanted to bait him, it either was a miscalculated attempt, or a particularly well planned one with a punchline that wasn't said yet.
"Why do you care for my thoughts on that particular matter?" Harry asked, consciously ignoring the second part of the question, which was more likely to be bait. Malfoy slightly paused.
"You do know what he did, don't you?" he asked and looked at him searchingly. Harry raised his eyebrow. This was quickly becoming the most civil conversation they had since the first meeting in Diagon Alley.
"If by 'what he did' you mean 'betrayed my parents and me to Voldemort'," everybody flinched. Crabbe and Goyle looked particularly ridiculous, "…then yes, I do know."
Harry belatedly realized that he had never come around to telling his friends about this little curious fact. Hermione looked at him in horror for a couple of seconds, after which her expression changed to one that meant 'We will talk about this'. Ron, predictably, had the face that usually substituted 'Blimey, mate'. Malfoy looked as if Harry knocked the floor from under him.
"Yes, well… so don't you want revenge?" he continued after gathering his wits. Harry shrugged.
"Maybe I do, maybe I don't – it doesn't really matter."
"How so, Potter? Decided to hide behind Dumbledore? Or is it the dementors that you put your trust upon? Well, probably not them – we all know that you can't handle being near one!"
Ouch. That one hit the mark. Even slightly off-balance Malfoy was able to dish out insults that would make a saint go berserk. Harry, however, was no saint.
"Do you love your mother, Malfoy?" Harry asked, seemingly out of the blue. The blond blinked at the non-sequitur.
"What out of it?" He asked, tone guarded. Harry stepped closer to him.
"Imagine her, right now. Does she love you? Has she ever told you about it?" He made another step. "Has she ever told you that she would shield you from harm? That she would sacrifice her life in an instant if it meant that you would live on?" another step had him snarling the next words right into Malfoy's confused face. "Imagine right now seeing and hearing her doing exactly that!"
Malfoy stepped away, visibly disturbed. A couple of seconds later, however, he managed to collect himself and sneered at Harry.
"Why, so you see your pathetic Mudblood mo…"
On that, Harry punched him in the face.
Hard.
Hearing and feeling his nose break did bring him satisfaction, but it was brief, because Crabbe and Goyle, reacting faster than Harry ever thought they would be able to, punched him next.
Very hard.
He landed on his arse, choking and barely restraining bile from escaping. Harry didn't see stars, but he was pretty sure he was seeing a lot of tiny Hermiones. The hundred little versions of his best friend quickly assembled into one much bigger with worry on her face.
"Harry? Harry, are you alright?"
"Fine," he croaked and attempted to stand up. He managed, but barely, wincing at the protesting abs and chest. As he was forcing himself to stand upright, he discreetly wiped off the tears off his eyes.Note to self: punches in the gut still hurt as hell. Nothing new, though. Harry glanced in the direction of the three Slytherins. Crabbe and Goyle both were lying on the floor in stiff poses that clearly told him that both were hit with Petrificus Totalus.
It seems the apes hit me harder than I thought if I didn't hear the spells. Draco was holding his obviously broken nose and glaring daggers at the trio. His wand was in his right hand, but he did not bring it up, for Ron's and Hermione's were raised and pointed at him.
"Pafetic, Pother," Malfoy said. "Phightin' like a Muggle"
Harry breathed in and out. Damn, it hurts. I didn't feel the ribs crack, so it must be tissue damage. Maybe I should visit Pomfrey. Now, though, there is a certain snake that desperately needs a lesson on when to keep his trap shut.
"Listen, gah, Malfoy, you should learn that there are things that it is not a good idea to make fun of or call names. It surprises me that you are ignorant of that particular unwritten law."
There. Insult his knowledge of social norms and customs. Seeing how all purebloods of that political block seemed to give a lot of attention to manners in their upbringing, it was sure to strike the mark.
Malfoy opened his mouth to retort but he never got the chance.
"What, exactly, is going on here?"
Harry barely managed to withhold a groan. Out of all the teachers…
"Pfofessor Snaphe! Pother athacked me!" Malfoy didn't hesitate to whine. The attacker in question looked at him, lifting his eyebrow in a sardonic manner.
"Remember what I told you on the train? What – if not daddy, then Snape?"
"That would be twenty points from Gryffindor for disrespect," Snape said, sneering at him as Malfoy glared in answer. "What happened here, mister Malfoy?"
"Pother hit me. Then Gwanger and Weasley pethrified Crabbe and Goyle. It was an assault!"
The whining really was getting to Harry. He lost control of his temper – again.
"You asked for it! No one insults my mother!"
"Assault, mister Malfoy?" Snape asked in a silky tone. Harry glanced at him. He only ever used this voice when speaking to Gryffindors – Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville in particular. The softer Snape's voice is, the deeper in shit you are – a widely known fact. "And what provoked this assault, dare I ask?"
Either Malfoy didn't notice the change of intonation, or the thought that Snape could punish him didn't enter his thick skull.
"Oh, I just made a commenth on hith fear of dementorth," he said off-hand. If Harry wasn't as mad as he was, he would stare at the blond shit incredulously.
"You called. My mother. A Mudblood."
The last words were growled. As in, really growled.
Snape's face went even paler than usual – no small feat by any means. Absently, he dispelled the charms on Crabbe and Goyle and healed Malfoy's nose with a quickEpiskey.
"Detention with Filch for you three. Mister Crabbe, mister Goyle – go to your common room. Mister Malfoy, follow me."
With that the greasy git turned on his heel sharply and went to his dungeon. Draco followed him, grumbling something under his breath.
"Well, that was interesting," Harry muttered, rubbing his bruised ribs. "Snape looked like he was going to lecture Malfoy for insulting us. Somebody check the temperature in hell."
"More like he was going to tell him off for being punched. Then the slimy bastard would congratulate him for managing to get under your skin and teach him a couple of new and exciting ways to do it," Ron said, shaking his head. Hermione glared at him, but held the usual admonishment for crass language.
"Harry, you need to go to Madam Pomfrey. That looked like it hurt."
"Nothing I can't handle. I'm fine, Hermione."
"No, you're not! I saw you wincing. With your pain tolerance, that was surely something more than a bruise!"
"It is a pretty bad bruise, but nothing more. Pomfrey isn't needed."
"I don't..."
Hermione pointed her wand at Harry's nose. The boy looked at the tip warily.
"You will go to the Hospital wing now, or so help me I will petrify you and levitate you myself. Ron, support me!"
The redhead looked at her, at Harry, and shrugged.
"I'm with her, mate. You should at least check it out, just in case."
"Traitor."
"Hey, with your luck you probably cracked a rib. I'm helping you here!"
Harry glared at both of them, but shortly sighed.
"Fine. Lead on, oh wise Overseers."
Ten minutes later
"What? Again?!"
Madam Pomfrey was not amused.
"No, it was Malfoy this time," Harry answered tiredly, sitting at the closest bed carefully, so as not to aggravate the bruise more than it was needed.
"Crabbe and Goyle, more accurately," Hermione corrected.
"It is always something new with you, Mr. Potter. What next – a dragon's bite?" Madam Pomfrey paused mid-stride with a tube of bruise paste in her hand. "Wait, forget I said anything."
"That would be Ron's prerogative," Harry grinned weakly. "He got that already, lucky sod."
"You got me beat there with the basilisk," Ron retorted, scratching his arm, where the said dragon bite mark (courtesy of Norbert) was placed. "And don't forget the scar on your forehead."
"Boys," Hermione rolled her eyes. Madam Pomfrey smiled sweetly.
"Well, if you are so intent at gathering disfigurements, maybe I shouldn't heal the bruise?"
Harry just looked at her plainly.
After one History of Magic with Slytherins in the middle of December Hermione grabbed Harry and Ron (both still yawning) and pulled them forward.
"Come on, sleepy-heads. You have five essays to write!"
That statement had the effect of a gallon of ice-cold water dumped on their heads.
"What?! No, I would swear that we had only two for this week!" Ron boggled at her. Harry didn't say anything, only making a resigned face.
"Well, yes, plus the two that are due in a month and that Herbology essay that we have to write until the next Thursday"
"Well, then we will write it later. Don't scare me like that, Hermione. Five essays..." Ron shook his head as if trying to ward off a nightmarish thought. Which, for him and Harry to a lesser extent, it was.
"You had enough rest during History. Now it is time to work!" Hermione told him in a sing-song tone.
"Not our fault – I just don't get how in the world Binns can describe the most heroic battles of all time with such enthusiasm as to induce catatonia," Harry grumbled, massaging his shoulder.
The girl opened her mouth to answer that, but heard a commotion from the corridor leading to the dungeons. Judging by his quickened pace, Harry heard it as well. The thing about castles is that sounds spread really well.
Before the trio rounded the corner leading to the corridor in question, Hermione heard a girl's voice spitting something about "being as loony as a name suggests". When they came closer to the sound of someone arguing they saw a girl – second or first year, judging by her height – sitting by the wall with a bloody lip, another girl standing in front of her and staring at her with contempt and a gaggle of Ravenclaw second (or first) years aside of them, watching the scene either approvingly or dispassionately.
"What, exactly, is going on here?" Harry asked, echoing Snape's earlier question. The small crowd started murmuring amongst themselves, throwing interested glances at Harry. The standing girl answered, not looking from the vacant expression on the other girl's face:
"None of your business."
"Why did you hit her?" Hermione asked, looking at the bleeding girl with worry. Harry did a double-take, having not noticed the blood.
"Again, none of your business," the girl shrugged and, after glancing at the trio with an uninterested look, walked away. The Ravenclaws that were standing nearby grumbled and left as well. The girl on the floor rose shakily and picked up her bag.
"Are you okay?" Harry asked. She looked at him and shrugged. Were those radishes in her ears?
"You are Harry Potter," the girl stated. Harry's brow rose a bit.
"Evidently. And you are...?"
"Luna Lovegood," was the answer. The girl – Luna – tilted her head to the side and watched Harry as if he was an interesting specimen of some sort of magical animal. Harry looked a bit off-balance. He coughed.
"Right... So, what did she hit you for?"
"She said I was weird. Wrackspurt infestation makes people do strange things," she answered airily and before Harry could ask her anything else, she skipped off, whistling merrily.
"Wrackspurt?" Hermione asked, puzzled. "Is it some kind of mind-controlling magical bacteria?"
Ron scoffed.
"Don't think about it much. I recognize her – she's a neighbour of ours. Her father owns a newspaper – don't remember the name – that writes nonsense about imagined animals and conspiracy theories. Ginny played with her in childhood. They especially loved to play 'Marrying Harry Potter', if I recall correctly..."
"Too much information, mate."
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