The second half of the term passed quickly and quietly. Hagrid continued his lessons with the pseudodragons, using them as a stand-in to talk about real dragons. Most of the class were impressed by just how knowledgeable Hagrid was when it came to dragons. Harry and Hermione were not surprised at all, knowing as they did about Hagrid's dragon obsession.
The Ancient Runes class was going well. The class was now covering basic warding and the construction of a ward. The groups were constructing a simple ward for a jewellery box. The project was academically interesting to Harry, as the goal wasn't to enchant the item, like they had done before, but to ward it, so that everything inside the warded box, and anything placed in it, was protected.
But it was the girls who were really getting into it. Apparently, both Slytherin and Gryffindor girls' dorms had a few members who would borrow jewelry without asking. According to the three girls, it wasn't malicious, the items were returned after, it was just annoying that some other girls wouldn't respect their private property.
"It's the girls with sisters especially," Daphne explained, as Harry tried to plan out on paper where the runes would go, "Astoria, my little sister, is the same; always borrowing my stuff. Some girls just treat their dorm mates like their sisters. And there are good and bad parts to that."
Harry was surprised that Daphne had a sister, as she hadn't mentioned her before, "You have a sister?"
Daphne nodded while she noted down a few things they would need to the essay that went with the project, "Yep, she starts Hogwarts next year. She is a total pain. It will be good to have her at Hogwarts, though. I miss her."
"She's a pain but you miss her?" That concept was baffling to Harry.
Daphne went to answer, then winced. She thought for a few seconds, before answering very carefully, "It's a sibling thing. A family thing. Sorry, Harry, I didn't mean to turn the conversation this way."
It was a sibling thing. Something Harry couldn't understand. A family thing. Something Harry barely had any idea about.
Harry couldn't understand, because he didn't have a family. Harry felt that old pain, that had been with him as long as he could remember, flair up again. But he smiled through it; it wouldn't be fair to the others if they couldn't talk about their families just because he was there, "It's Ok Daph. You have every right to talk about your family. Maybe you could introduce her to us in September," Harry indicated himself and Hermione.
"Sure. I'm warning you though, she may not be as bad as that Creevey boy with the camera, but she will fangirl a little. She loves celebrities," Daphne smiled at him.
Harry tried to hide his grimace, but wasn't successful, "Thanks for the heads up."
Tracy, who had been doodling while she waited for Harry to finish with the Rune layout, then piped up, "What is it with you and not liking your fame, Harry? Most people would milk it for all its worth."
Harry sighed, "But most people are famous for something they did. Good or bad, they did it. Meanwhile, I'm famous for having murdered parents. Every time someone brings up my fame, to me, it's just a reminder that I didn't get to grow up with my parents," The silence hung in the air, and Hermione pulled him against her in a hug.
Tracy took his hand, offering what little comfort she could, "I'm sorry Harry. I should have known. It's so obvious, in hindsight."
"It's fine, Tracy, I know you didn't mean anything by it," Harry assuressored the Slytherin who was quickly becoming one of his closest friends.
-ϟϟϟ-
Harry was sat in one of the greenhouses, holding a bit of ice to his lip. Neville had asked him to help re-pot a cutting from the whomping willow. The cutting was apparently from last year, when the tree had been injured after Harry and Ron had accidentally flown Mr Weasley's car into it.
One of the branches was too damaged to reattach to the tree, so Professor Sprout had tried to keep it alive as a cutting. The thick lip it had just given him was a testament to her success. With her care, and Neville's assistance, the cutting was doing so well that a year on, it needed a larger pot.
As Professor Sprout had her hands full, she had asked Neville to take care of it. The only thing was, Neville needed a second pair of hands to help. He had asked Harry, who had been only too happy to help. He knew that Neville partly blamed him for what had happened to his parents, and probably held some degree of resentment towards him because of that.
If Harry was honest with himself, he felt he was partly to blame as well. He jumped at the chance to do anything he could to help the shy Gryffindor, who didn't tend to ask him, or anybody really, for help when it came to Herbology.
The problem was that the cutting seemed to remember Harry, and it didn't like him.
Scrap that; it hated him. So much so, that as Harry and Neville tried to re-pot the willow, it kept trying to hit and strangle Harry, more than what it usually did to people.
Despite this, the two Gryffindors had been able to re-pot the damn plant. Neville had come out completely fine, but Harry had quite a few bruises and a split lip. Neville came back over from putting the willow back in its regular spot in the greenhouse, "Sorry again, Harry, it's not normally like that with people. I mean...it's a whopping willow; it normally tends to attack people, but it went absolutely nuts trying to get at you."
"I think it remembers me, from when Ron and I crashed into it at the start of our second year," Harry joked as he wiped the next bit of blood that was dribbling down his chin.
"I don't think whomping willows have memory, Harry," Neville said, before getting a speculative look as he thought of something, "Though...I suppose it's possible. They do sense magical beings, that's how they know where to hit. It's entirely possible that they keep track of magic signatures that are present when they suffer damage," Neville hypothesised, "That's actually a really good idea, Harry," He sounded rather excited by the idea.
"Uh, I was just joking Neville. I don't have a clue about this stuff. Plants are your thing, not mine," Harry replaced the ice on his lip once he finished talking, hoping that it would take the swelling down a little.
Whomping willows hit damn hard.
"Even so, it's a good idea. I'll definitely look into it. Whomping willows are rare enough that few wizards or witches with the right knowledge ever get a chance to study them. And, the ones that do get the opportunity often give up quickly. Mostly because they run out of Skele Gro," Neville joked to Harry, who laughed for a few seconds, but stopped when his lip began throbbing in pain from the movement.
He thought for a few seconds before saying, "If you need any help, just say so, and I'll make time," He thought about everything Neville had lost because of him. This was really the least he could do.
"Thanks Harry. Given that we don't want to hurt the willows again, your help would be really useful."
The two of them cleaned up before heading back to the castle. As Harry's lip hadn't stopped bleeding, he headed up to the hospital wing so that Madam Pomfrey could take a look at it, while Neville went back to the common room.
-ϟϟϟ-
It was Sunday and Harry and Hermione, like during most Sundays, were in the library. They weren't, however, doing homework or revision. They made sure they got those out of the way on Saturdays.
Sundays were spent going over wizarding law books. The subject as a whole was both fascinating and disturbing.
For example, Wizarding Britain didn't even exist legally. Instead, there were the Houses .
The House of Bones, the House of Weasley, the House of Malfoy, along with others. Wizarding Britain was technically just a collection of tribes, or perhaps, as they were in Scotland, 'clans' would be a better term, thought Harry.
Each house was legally its own nation. Even if they didn't have land and borders, they were free to make their own rules and laws, as long as they didn't affect anyone outside of their house.
According to Hermione, that was how Britain used to be before the country was united. There were still reminders of that system in non-magical Britain. The Houses of Lancaster and York, for example, had large regions of the country named after them, and the House of Windsor was the current royal family.
The Wizengamot was not, like Harry and Hermione had assumed, a government, not really.
It was more like a miniature United Nations. The most prominent Warlocks, the head of a House, were invited to sit on the Wizengamot. It was true that over time the reach of the Wizengamot had grown, and a few laws were passed that were above House law, such as the Statute of Secrecy, which was mandated by the international Confederation of Wix (that had changed its name from the International Confederation of Wizards about seven years ago).
There were also some crimes that were always dealt with by the Ministry and brought to the Wizengamot for trial, such as murder, and the use of something called unforgivable curses. The Wizengamot mostly left internal House matters to be dealt with by the House Warlock, only getting involved when an incident involved more than one House.
For anything else, you needed a House Warlock, or their appointed representative, to take the matter to the Wizengamot before they could get involved. It appeared that that was the reason as to why discrimination against muggle-borns was so widespread, despite it being 'illegal'. The muggle-born Wix, not being from one of the many recognised Houses, had no-one of legal standing to bring a case before the Wizengamot.
Harry was a little surprised to find that Potter was one of the recognised Houses, but as he was the only member left, it didn't mean much for him. His House wasn't likely to gain the influence needed to be invited to sit on the Wizengamot in his lifetime, and there wouldn't be any other members of the House of Potter for there to be internal conflicts with, at least until he got married.
Buckbeak's case, however, was their main focus. The problem was that the wording of the law was so open-ended that, from what Harry and Hermione (if Harry was honest it was mostly Hermione; he'd be damned to try and figure out this old text) could figure out, a person could claim an animal was dangerous and destroy it if someone sneezed in the presence of the animal and decided to blame it on the poor creature.
On an academic level, Harry could understand it; you didn't want a genuinely dangerous creature on the loose because of a technicality or legal loophole from an overly specific law.
But it really sucked for Buckbeak. It may have been Malfoy's own stupid fault, but Beaky had intentionally injured him. That it was only a scratch didn't matter as far as the law was concerned.
As it stood, the law was clearly on Malfoy's side. The only real chance to save Buckbeak at this point was if the Ministry had a sudden change of heart. And as the Malfoys were a rich, influential family, the likelihood of the Ministry siding against them was slim enough that the average sheet of parchment was thicker.
-ϟϟϟ-
Harry was still a little upset with the Weasley twins.
They may not have pushed Harry to dose Hermione with a potion along with everyone else, and if Harry was honest, if he had told Hermione beforehand, there was a good chance she would have actually agreed to it.
But, he still felt that the twins needed some payback for their part in what had been the largest fight he had ever had with his girlfriend.s
He had been trying to come up with something worthy of pranking those two ever since, and had finally found something that he thought would work. Determined to not make the same mistake as last time, he showed Hermione what he'd found while they sat in front of the fire in the common room.
"Here it is, the 'Notice Me potion'; originally brewed as a cure for the 'Notice Me Not' potion. The 'Notice Me' potion will make people pay attention to the drinker," Harry read from the potion book he was showing his girlfriend and prospective partner in crime.
"So, you want to prank the twins for causing our fight? You blame the twins ?" There was a slight edge to her voice that indicated to Harry that he was heading to troubled waters.
"No, I blame myself. It was my plan that was at fault," Hermione's expression softened but Harry could tell she still wanted a further explanation, "But, it wouldn't have happened if not for the twins, and anyway, it's about time they have a taste of being on the other end of the prank for once."
"Ok, and why are you telling me about this?" Hermione asked.
"Two reasons. First, I'm not risking the same mistake ever again; I am going to at least tell you about any pranks I pull, not that I plan to pull many, so that if you do somehow get caught up in them, it won't be like last time. The second reason is, I was hoping to pick that big and amazingly beautiful brain of yours," even Harry could see that he was laying the compliments on thick, and he complimented Hermione at least a couple of times every day, "I want to make sure this will do what I intend it to, and maybe get some help with the brewing."
Hermione looked at him for a few moments before saying, "Sure, I guess I'll help. But just this once; I'm not really into pranks. Before I came to Hogwarts, the kids I was at school with would pull 'pranks' on me, like putting an open bottle of water in my school bag so that when I picked it up the water would spill and ruin my books. Most 'pranks', as far as I can tell, are just bullying," there was a certain bitterness in her voice that made Harry pull her into a hug.
"I'm sorry Mione. I didn't mean to make you think I was like them."
Hermione leaned into his hug. "You didn't Harry. Your prank was a real prank. People who were affected were laughing and nobody was hurt or singled out. I didn't like being slipped a potion, but I never thought you were like them."
Hermione was quiet for a few moments as she moved to get more comfortable, "However, the twins go too far sometimes. They make people into a spectacle to be laughed at. So what are you hoping this potion will do to them?"
"Well...they are always sneaking around to pull pranks, right?" Hermione nodded so Harry continued, "So, I was hoping that the potion will get them caught. Every time they try something, I want someone to catch them in the act," Harry explained.
He knew that a prank like this would appeal to Hermione's sense of justice. The twins would experience nothing but the consequences of their actions. That is, if he understood the potion correctly.
Hermione pulled the book over to her and read, then re-read, the description of the effects, before she moved on to dissecting the recipe, "I think you are right about what the potion would do, and the ingredients are easy enough. Most are in our potion kits, and the rest are in the students' store cupboard. The brewing time of eighteen hours is a bit of a hassle, but not unworkable. How do you intend to get them to drink it though? The twins are always really careful with what they drink."
Fred and George tended not to drink from the cups like the other students, often an indicator as to whether the drink was laced with something. Harry presumed that they also were careful so that people trying to get revenge on them for pranks wouldn't be able to spike their drinks. If you go around spiking drinks all the time you are probably very aware of how easy it is for someone to do the same to you.
"I've been thinking about that, and I think there is an opportunity during Quidditch practice; their drinks bottles that they use. I was hoping you could use the cloak and add it while we are distracted in the air." Harry hoped that she would be agreeable to that.
"That could work," she nodded before she changed the subject, "Enough about pranks; how are you going on with your Runes project?"
Harry winced, "Not great. I'm starting to think it's unusable. The summoning works, but the charm on the wand is attracted to runes on the paper around my wrist. I end up with the wand dangling from my wrist, and having to take time to fix it. It's completely ineffective and useless in a duel."
Hermione thought for a minute, "Have you tried putting the runes somewhere other than a bracelet? Maybe if they were in a ring?"
Harry considered it, "Maybe; doing the runes on something that small would be awkward, but it's worth giving a try. Maybe, if I also took the charm off the string and attached it right to the bottom of the wand, that could work?" Harry was talking more to himself now.
Hermione, seeing that he was caught up in his musings now, pulled the potion book back to herself, snuggled into Harry, and began looking to see if the book had any other potions that caught her interest.
-ϟϟϟ-
Getting the ingredients for the potion was child's play, but working out where and when to brew the potion had been harder. In the end the duo had decided to co-opt their date night and use the Room of Requirement.
Using the Friday night had a number of advantages, not least of which was that without class the next day, the pair of them could stay in the Room of Requirement overnight to tend the potion for the eighteen hours it took to brew.
Harry had been a little surprised when the suite Hermione set up only had four rooms when he'd been expecting five. There was, of course, their regular room to relax in, the one with a sofa, fire and dining table.
Then there was a small potions lab that had most types of equipment in it, even though they had brought their own. There was a bathroom as well, as they couldn't leave the room after curfew without risking being found out of bed by Filch or one of the teachers.
The last room was the bedroom.
With one bed.
Harry had no problem sharing a bed with Hermione; it wasn't the first time, and it was probably going to be more and more common in the years to come. Harry had even had a few thoughts that maybe he and Hermione would get married one day.
This, however, would be the first time sharing because they just wanted to. Every time before had been the result of being in the hospital wing or Hermione having a night terror. Harry hadn't expected Hermione to go with a one-bed option.
The two of them spent their time split between the potions lab and the sofa reading another wizarding fiction. Hermione had found a book that was a fictional account of an apprentice to Merlin and the weird things he got up to while trying to learn magic.
The next morning, Harry woke early as his pillow vibrated, pulling him from the best and worst nights' sleep he'd had in months.
It was the worst nights' sleep because he and Hermione had to get up three times each to go and tend the potion, which was the reason he was up so early, as he needed to go and stir the cauldron.
The reason it was the best nights' sleep was because Hermione was curled up next to him. Something about having her so close made it so easy for him to sleep well.
He untangled his legs from hers, a little embarrassed that she was pressed against his growing problem , and crept out of the bedroom and into the potion lab.
He checked the potion against the description the book said it should have at this point, and was happy that everything was on track.
He picked up the glass stirring rod and began to stir; first, three stirs counter-clockwise, then five clockwise, followed by seven more counter-clockwise. The pale milky coloured potion instantly turned a bright shade of orange, exactly like the book said it would. Potions seemed to be a lot easier when Snape wasn't around constantly berating him.
Harry adjusted the flames under the cauldron, turning down the heat. All the potion needed now was to simmer for two to three hours until it turned bright yellow with a golden glow.
That left Harry with two options. He could call Dobby and arrange some breakfast for him and Hermione; he really needed to do something for the elf who always went out of his way to help Harry.
Or, he could climb back into bed for a few hours.
The call of the bed proved to be too strong to ignore. Not only because of the broken sleep he'd had last night, but also, he would be able to be with Hermione as she snuggled back into him.
She was a real cuddle monster and he absolutely loved it.
He recast the charm to make his pillow vibrate in an hour and forty-five minutes, before climbing back into the king-sized bed next to Hermione. As he predicted, she almost immediately wrapped herself around him, pulling him back to a pleasant slumber.
-ϟϟϟ-
It was coming up to lunchtime, so Harry and Hermione decided that it was time to leave the Room of Requirement and join the rest of the school.
Hermione was a little worried that someone had noticed their absence from their beds and told Professor McGonagall, but as she looked at Harry while they walked down the stairs, she thought that even if Professor McGonagall gave them detention in the forest again, like in their first year, it would definitely be worth it.
And that had nothing to do with the six vials of Notice Me potion that were currently in her bag.
They were halfway across the entrance hall heading to the Great Hall, when they were interrupted by a shout, "Oi Potter!"
The two of them looked around and found Draco Malfoy and a man who Hermione remembered from his fight with Mr. Weasley in Diagon Alley over a year ago.
Draco's father, Mr, or Warlock, Malfoy.
"My father just got my Quidditch ban overturned, what do you think about that?" Draco had that smug look on his face that he wore whenever he thought he had won something, which was far too frequently for Harry's liking.
"Honestly, I'm relieved; if you're back on the team, then I don't have to worry about Slytherin finding someone with talent ," Harry responded. Draco's face turned red with rage but his father remained impassive, "You do remember you had to get your father to bribe your way onto the team in the first place, right?" A few of the students who had stopped to watch sniggered quietly, even a couple of Slytherins had found that funny.
"Just because my father can afford to buy brooms for my team didn't mean I bribed my way on to the team. My family just recognised that Slytherin deserves the best," Draco was getting himself so worked up that his father stepped in, placing a firm hand on Draco's shoulder, silently telling him to let him deal with it, "So, Mr Potter; you say you are a better seeker than my son. Yet...I just saw the Quidditch Cup in the Slytherin Head's office, so obviously, you aren't doing that well, which is to be expected, considering most of the brooms you fly are more fit for sweeping floors than the noble sport of quidditch" Warlock Malfoy was calm and condescending as he spoke, his words returning the smug look to Draco's face.
"If you remember, I was recovering in the hospital wing at the end of last year, after I had to deal with the massive snake someone arranged to be released into the school. So we played our last game without a seeker. However, if I also recall, last year's Gryffindor vs. Slytherin match was a Gryffindor victory, after I beat Draco to the snitch, despite him having a broom advantage, a feat I am more than confident I can repeat," Harry argued back just as calmly.
"We shall see about that, Mr. Potter," And with that chilling statement, the elder Malfoy walked past Harry and Hermione. Draco, meanwhile, had disappeared into the Great Hall.
"Well, that was ominous," Hermione said as she watched Mr Malfoy walk off.
"Doesn't matter; unless he's going to pay someone to catch the snitch for him, Malfoy doesn't stand a chance," Harry looked confident, but Hermione knew him well enough to know that he was only saying that out loud in front of the other students.
Harry wasn't sure what the elder Malfoy had in mind, but he was most definitely worried about it. Hermione just hoped it was Quidditch related, and not an attempt to keep Harry from playing some other way.
-ϟϟϟ-
Harry was making his way to the whomping willow to meet with Neville. The green-fingered Gryffindor had asked Harry to meet him there after class so that they could see if there was anything to the theory that whomping willows had some sort of memory for the magical signatures around when they were damaged.
Harry thought it was a longshot. He had only said it as a joke to explain his bad luck with the cutting, but Neville seemed to think the idea had genuine merit and when it came to plants, Harry was more than willing to let Neville take the lead. Magical plants are very dangerous and Harry has no experience with them outside basic Herbology, where as this is actually Neville's passion
He arrived at the willow but stood way back as he didn't see Neville anywhere around. He cast a few warming charms and sat on a rock a good twenty feet from the tree, well out of the reach of its branches. He had seen what they could do to a car, let alone something as soft and squishy as him.
It took Neville about ten minutes to turn up, and he wasn't alone. He had a few other people with him. There was Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones, both from Hufflepuff, and Demelza Robins, a Gryffindor from the year below Harry and Neville.
Harry stood up and nodded to the group as they approached.
"Sorry I'm late Harry. On the way down I realized that we need more of a test than just me and you, so I asked Hannah and Susan along. Demelza overheard and wanted to help; apparently, she likes Herbology as much as I do," Neville explained.
"No worries, the weather is dry and I wasn't waiting too long," Harry wasn't worried about a few minutes of doing nothing.
"OK everyone, while Harry and I were repotting a cutting from this tree the other day, Harry had an idea. He was joking, but I think he might be right. Harry observed that the cutting was attacking him more than me and wondered if the tree could remember him from when he'd injured it when he and Ron Weasley flew a car into it at the beginning of the last school year. So I got a few tests in mind to see it this could be true..."
Neville went on for a few minutes as he explained the tests he wanted to do and the importance of not getting too close to the tree, unless they wanted to spend the next few days sampling Madam Pomfrey's bedside manners.
The tests were relatively simple. First, each of them approached slowly and stopped as soon as the tree started to react to them being there. Neville wanted to see how far the tree could sense and if it was the same distance for all of them.
The results of that test were...interesting, to put it bluntly.
For the other four there was a difference between them, but it was only about 8 inches between Demelza, who got the nearest, and Susan who was the furthest.
Well, the furthest apart from Harry, who was a good foot and a half further back when the willow started reaching out to attack him.
Neville's next test involved each of them standing on their line one at a time while they watched to see how much the tree reacted to their presence. He wanted to see if any of them got a more energetic reaction than others.
This test was inconclusive. The willow didn't appear to be trying to whomp anyone any more than another.
It was the last, and main, tests that were the most interesting. First, Neville had two of them approach the tree from different sides to see if there was a preferred target.
For most pairs, it was a wash, the tree just seemed to want to squash them both.
Unless, that is, one of the people in the pair was Harry. No matter who was partners with Harry for the test, the tree definitely wanted to squash him more. There were even a few close calls, and Harry was very glad of his ever-needed reflexes.
They repeated the experiment with groups of three and four, but each time the result was the same. While the willow swung at them all, it always put the bulk of its efforts into trying to attack Harry.
Even when they grouped three of them on one side of the tree and Harry on the other, the swinging branches were mostly focused on him. The tree really seemed to have it in for Harry.
Neville, of course, found the results fascinating. He kept scribbling note after note on bits of parchment he pulled out of his robe pocket. Once it became clear that all the tests were done for the day, the three girls went back to the castle to get ready for dinner. Harry, however, stayed with Neville as he went over his notes.
"Do you realize how big this could be, Harry, if whomping willows have memory? It definitely looks like they might. This could lead to a whole new set of charms for dealing with them. Imagine if you could use a charm to get a whomper to see you as a friend," He was obviously excited by the possibility.
"That could be cool, maybe you could get it to remember not to attack certain people, so you could set one as a guardian somewhere," Harry thought that could be useful.
"Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done to prove this idea. It looks promising; the whomping willow is definitely targeting you, which could be because it remembers you, or it could just be something about you that whomping willows don't like. It's definitely enough evidence to justify talking to Professor Sprout about a special project," Neville continued,
"I wonder who we could have on the team. Me and you, of course. We should probably at least try to rope in Ron, as we need a more statistically relevant sample size. Not that two is really enough, we really need ten or so, and more willows, but we just don't have the resources. Maybe we can get a private owner to let us test theirs?" Neville went on like that for about five minutes while Harry listened.
"If it's anything like my Runes project, then I doubt we'll have enough time left to do it this year. The school year is already half gone," Harry thought about the setbacks he's had so far, and wondered just how likely it was that a project like the one Neville was planning would run smoothly.
"If a project like this is big enough, you can do it for a few years. At least that's what I heard. I wanted to do a personal project with Herbology this year, but I couldn't think of one, so I ended up taking divination instead," Neville didn't sound too happy about taking Divination, and Harry could definitely see why.
"Is Trelawney still predicting your death every lesson?"
"Our deaths. Mine and yours. She is still predicting our deaths in every lesson. It's getting tiring, and it's not like she is predicting anything, she's just read the Prophet and knows LeStrange is on the loose. It's really annoying having to deal with her all the time."
Harry was just looking through the notes that Neville had written when he heard a familiar voice behind him, "Well, isn't this a lovely sight! Little baby Potter and little baby Longbottom. Looks like I will get to finish up two loose ends before I deal with that fucking cat bitch."
Harry spun around, and there, right behind him, with half her hair burned off and her face all charred down the left side, stood Bellatrix LeStrange.