Being in the Order of the Phoenix was the easiest thing in the world.
Sure, Death Eaters had been picking them off as if they were carrion
and sure, their leader, Albus Dumbledore had died right before the
heat of the war.
Yet being a part of the Order meant no laws, no legal proceedings to
get done what needed to be done, and no damned paperwork. And
yes, they had gotten their asses handed to them during the war and
yes, had it not been for Harry Potter they might all be dead or worse.
But Kingsley Shacklebolt was still getting his ass kicked and if one
more relative tried to sue the government because their muggle-born
relative was executed by Voldemort's terrorist government he was
going to-
His secretary opened his door without knocking and said simply, "Sir,
there's another one."
Deep breaths, deep breaths. Minister Shacklebolt did not wipe
everything off his table. Minister Shacklebolt did not hex his
secretary. Minister Shacklebolt did not lose his shit.
Minister Shacklebolt hated his job.
Calmly Kingsley asked, "Don't they realize it wasn't our side that
killed their loved ones?"
"In that case, Sir, there are several old families pushing through the
works, Draco Malfoy is suing for wrongful imprisonment of his
father."
"His father is a Death Eater," Kingsley growled.
"But according to his son, he was held hostage at his own estate for
nearly two years and when he was allowed 'out' he did not have a
wand."
Kingsley wanted to call foul, but he couldn't as he couldn't remember
anyone fighting the blonde dunce in the last two years. Well, there
had been the attack at the Department of Mysteries but there had
been enough improper procedures then that a good council would
have that evidence dismissed out of hand.
"Damn."
"So it's true?" The little secretary with his shined boots and slicked
back hair asked.
"I don't know." Kingsley pinched the bridge of his nose, "What else
did you say there was?"
"Half the staff are out on strike for harm received on duty working for
the ministry. One-fourth of the staff are on strike for muggle and
muggle-born rights, while the other fourth is on strike against the
people trying to pass laws that support the rights of Magical
Creatures and Muggle rights."
"So who's left at the office today, Kline?"
"Myself, Arthur Weasley, Rolf Scamander, and John Dawlish, Sir," his
secretary said. "I don't know how many people exactly we have
working at the MOM so I didn't know how to percentage them out."
"So tell me, Kline, how exactly is the government functioning today?"
"We aren't, Sir. But the Prophet has been working overtime, as has
the Quibbler."
If Kline hadn't been one out of four employees to show up to work
that day Kingsley would have fired him. As it was, Kingsley needed a
plan to get everyone back in line, or at least back into some
workable shape that he could spend the next twenty years trying to
reassemble. If there was one thing that was worse than having a
militaristic government with a Dark Lord steering the ship, was no
government and a sunken ship.
On the TV people always make fun of the guy making strange noises
and faces to feed their baby mashed vegetables.
The thing is though, those strange noises and exaggerated silly
expressions worked . The baby gets distracted enough that they -
almost unconsciously in some circumstances swallowed the more
solidish food. Teddy wasn't a bad eater and digested more than he
spat up. Of course, Harry thought this might have something to do
with formula not being the same as breast milk.
Andromeda made the baby food herself and taught Harry how to
make it out of real fruit and real vegetables. So in effect, Teddy had
gone from eating powder in warm water to eating real food with
natural sugar. It surprised no one that Teddy preferred his fruits to his
veggies, though he did have a partiality to broccoli. Apparently,
Nymphadora had been the same way.
Teddy didn't truly need that encouragement, he was a good eater. So
there brought up the question of why Harry made stupid faces for
Teddy? The answer was straightforward, to get Teddy to laugh.
Teddy had three types of laughter, one was a cute innocent giggle,
the next was a shrieking exclamation of joy and excitement, and the
last was Harry's ultimate goal. Teddy had a full body laugh that
involved rolling, gasping for air, and almost insatiable ongoing
laughter that Harry had clocked at five minutes and five seconds.
Andromeda would tease him by saying, 'Stop giving the baby fits.'
If Harry ever caused his godson harm it would be from laughter. To
say Harry had no shame in the lengths he would go to make Teddy
laugh was an understatement. Teddy did not grow up watching TV
and movies, he grew up watching his godfather play puppet shows
and listening to his dramatized voice as Harry read him stories.
Teddy didn't really understand what his godfather was saying but he
understood that he had Harry's full attention and that he was the
safest, bestest person to be around.
Andromeda for her part stepped in when Harry needed sleep, helped
cook and clean. She read her own books more than she played with
Teddy, but that wasn't to say she wasn't around. Wherever Harry
was, she was. They shared space if not always activities. If Harry
was in the kitchen she was in the kitchen, if Harry was in the living
room she was in the living room, if Harry was in the nursery then
Andromeda was in the nursery. The only private places Harry had
were Nymphadora's room that he had taken over and the bathroom.
Though sometimes Andromeda would have the occasional episode
in the shower that Harry would need to help her through.
Harry did not mind the lack of privacy. At school, he hadn't been
alone often and at the Dursleys, well there was no comparison to
Andromeda and Teddy's company to the Dursleys' company.
Teddy's first word was spoken on the 13th of October, Friday the
thirteenth as it happened and to Andromeda's extreme delight that
word was 'Mama.' She had laughed herself hoarse because Teddy
hadn't been referring to her but Harry.
Harry was proud that Teddy was beginning to talk in words. Teddy's
typically black hair turned canary yellow as he laughed with his
grandmother, not because he understood the joke but because
Grandmama was laughing and that was a reason enough for him to
laugh too.
Harry rolled his eyes and pulled the laughing child into his lap, where
they had been sitting on the floor.
Teddy reached forward to grab a picture book and began reading to
his two guardians. He didn't read in words, but his disjointed sounds
had a rhythm to it similar to the overly dramatic way Harry
sometimes read books. The more simple and childish a story was,
the more antics Harry brought into the reading.
Andromeda was pleased that in Harry's attempt to make Teddy laugh
he'd given her grandson a love for books and stories. She moved to
sit closer to them, hers and Harry's back to the couch. She smiled at
Teddy who pulled the book closer to her so she could see pictures.
Life was good.
Life at Hogwarts that year was difficult, to say the least. From every
class nearly half the students were missing, some had died in the
Battle of Hogwarts, others had refused to return, and even more, had
parents who simply refused to send them.
The other minor schools in the United Kingdoms were nearly
overtaxed with the influx of students. Hogwarts had gone from being
one of the most prestigious and safest places in the Wizarding World
to a place where many feared to go. The seventh year class was by
far the biggest class but only because a portion of the graduating
class had returned.
Minerva worried for her students, in particular, she worried for the
Slytherins. There were no returning upperclassmen. They had either
opted to go overseas or be homeschooled. The younger students,
and the newly sorted students… they were treated quite badly.
Comparable to the year the Chamber of Secrets was opened, only
worse as there was no Harry Potter to take the heat of the House of
Snakes. Classes were chaperoned by the professors. Slytherin
classes were never left on their own, ever.
The staff meeting ended up focusing on this issue.
"They don't listen to us anymore, Minerva," Pomona said.
"Yes, well when you have students practicing the unforgivables on
one another it does change the dynamics," Septima said.
"If I have to treat one more Slytherin first year for bullying I am going
to hex the rest of the school," Poppy growled. Poppy had not
handled last year's events well. She was still in war mode, she would
heal anyone, of course. However, she was also willing to fight tooth
and nail against anyone who hurt one of her students, to the point
where Poppy's detentions were feared.
"We need someone they'll listen to," Hagrid said. "Sadly that ain't
us."
"You need someone who isn't going to half heartedly support the
Slytherin class," Horace snapped. He had agreed to stay on for this
year and this year alone. "The rest of the school would follow Neville
Longbottom or Hermione Granger to the grave but their little talks
about house unity are ingenuine at best."
"Gee, you couldn't imagine why that would be?" Hagrid muttered
roughly.
"Enough!" Minerva shouted as Horace opened his mouth for a
scathing retort. "We need a plan, not to stoke the flames by fighting
amongst ourselves."
"What about Harry?" Filius suggested.
"What about him?" Minerva asked.
"What if Harry came in to teach a few seminars in Defense Against
the Dark Arts? Once the younger students get to know him a little,
maybe Harry would be able to talk about house unity."
The room was silent and then Hagrid said, "But Harry hates
Slytherins, more than most."
"No, he doesn't," Minerva said, liking the idea more and more as she
mulled it over. "Ron Weasley hates Slytherins and Harry didn't get
along with Draco Malfoy, but Harry never went out of his way to be
mean or cruel to a Slytherin student on account of them being in
Slytherin."
Filius is right, he might be the only one everyone might listen to."
"I like Harry," Horace said, "But I doubt my Slytherins will trust what
he has to say."
"They don't need to," Minerva said, "I just need the other three
houses to stop ostracizing the Slytherins."
"Minerva," Horace sighed, "Slytherins have always been ostracized."
"Be that as it may, the Slytherin students have never needed
chaperones to ensure they reach class without any broken bones."
"Call for Harry," Poppy said. "He will do what needs to be done. He
has always done what is right when given a clear choice."
"Wandless magic?" Harry asked.
"I've seen you accio your glasses nearly every day," Andromeda
insisted.
"Yeah, but they are just my glasses."
"Wands are great, they are focusing objects, conduits of power. But
at the end of the day, the wand needs the wizard more than the
wizard needs the wand. Think about it. We were all born with magic.
Born being able to lift objects, grow back our hair, play instruments…
We are magic. Our bodies, our minds, they are all we need to direct
what is ours."
"You sound like a fanatic."
Andromeda rolled her eyes, "Even the Blacks didn't start their six
year olds out with the Dark Arts. Wandless magic is a foundational
skill."
"Okay, so two questions. You started learning formal magic when
you were six? And why do you bother with a wand if wandless magic
is superior?"
"I did, Bella started out when she was three and Sirius when he was
four. Wands are for standardized magic, wandless magic is
individual. Every person is different, the magic responds in different
ways. It is hard to teach because the results can be unpredictable."
"How unpredictable?" Harry asked. "Is this dangerous?"
"Of course it's dangerous," she said, "all magic is."
"We have a baby sleeping in the other room, Andromeda, define
dangerous."
"Well, you're probably going to throw yourself on your ass a couple
times over. Now let us begin."
Harry was indeed thrown on his ass a couple of times and then he
was able to push Andromeda down on hers. But that was only the
one time, her wandless shields were impressive. Though as that
week passed by, they learned that Andromeda's attacks were
stronger than Harry's but Harry's shields were stronger, as he was
superior at Charms.
"What do you mean our funding is being cut?" Charlie bellowed at
his boss.
"Our funding is being cut. Our options are to put down a few dragons
or halve your paychecks," Lilith said.
"We are not killing our own dragons!" Topaz McGonagall exclaimed.
"What about our representative at the M.O.M.?" Charlie asked, "Was
he bought out?"
"Mr. Scamander was outvoted, unsurprising seeing as the boy is
barely twenty," Lilith said through gritted teeth.
"What do you mean he was 'outvoted'? Don't they understand what
we do on these reserves? Dragons are necessary to our society,
their magic fuels ours. If we start murdering them then their magic
will turn on us."
Lilith frowned, she wasn't a dragonologist, she was just the human
resource lady. "If you don't kill them how do you get the heartstrings
for our wands?"
Charlie laughed, "You wait for them to die or for them to kill each
other. If they are killed by human magic their heartstrings are poised
against us. There are a lot of reasons why we don't use old wands.
Most of them are cursed for one reason or another. The dragon core
wands that were obtained by means of violence tend to be dead,
they will suck up your energy and give nothing back."
"Oh," Lilith said, "well there are other wand cores-"
"And what about dragonhide? What about the potion materials?
Some of these dragons are on the brink of extension. If we 'put
down' any of them when they fight amongst themselves, when they
fight while mating, when they get sick, when eggs get crushed, when
any number of natural things happen to them who is to say that it will
not be the end of their species. We need dragons and you need us
to tend them, hide them from muggles, and collect the profit they
reap."
"The Ministry is strapped, you are going to either have to take the
lower paychecks or prepare for the worst," Lilith said.
Topaz and Charlie exchanged a look, their teams stood behind them,
waiting on their decision.
"We'll take the pay cut," Charlie said.
"You can split my paycheck between the team," Topaz said. "These
dragons are my life. As long as I have the necessities to keep myself
going, I'll survive."
Charlie sighed, "Mine too."
His mother was going to throw a fit.
Harry arrived at Hogwarts on a Monday at the bequest of Minerva
and Filius who asked for him to teach a seminar and 'talk' to the
houses. He wasn't sure what 'talk' meant exactly but he had a
suspension it had something to do with after war tensions between
Slytherin and everyone else.
He wasn't wrong.
The moment he entered he noted two things. The number of
students had dropped dramatically and out of all the houses,
Slytherin was in the worst shape.
For one, there were no upperclassmen. There were maybe three
fourth years and the first years almost outnumbered what Harry
suspected were the second and third years put together. It was hard
to gauge their ages. They all looked too young, several had
bandages, and all of them stared at him like he was a spider come to
eat them alive.
Harry liked that not at all.
The other three houses were stunned, Ron and Hermione especially,
were gaping at him. He realized that they hadn't seen him since
Andromeda's healing potion. No one had actually, because Harry
hadn't been in the Wizarding World since his birthday. Harry gave
Hermione a wink. When he began to walk across the hall and then
they began to cheer.
Harry -because he wasn't a student and couldn't be given detention,
pulled his wand and nonverbally sent out a silencio out to
Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor. He didn't need or want a
hero's welcome.
No need to silence Slytherin wasn't cheering, either out of fear or
hatred.
Neville stood and glared at him.
Harry grinned at his old friend. What were they going to do to him?
The worst that would happen was Minerva sending him home, of
course, that wouldn't have been an effective punishment as he didn't
want to be here. Besides, they all had their wands, they could have
undone the spell anytime they wanted.
Hermione, of course, realized this but she sat patiently, waiting for
Harry's lead. Harry undid the spell once he had taken the empty seat
between Madame Pomfrey and Professor Slughorn.
There was an awkward silence because nobody wanted to cheer for
the guy who had just cast a shut up spell on them, 'Chosen One' or
no.
"Eat your breakfast," Minerva called out, "Slytherins will have two
periods with Professor Potter and the other three houses will be
having the two afternoon periods. He will be teaching a Defense
Against the Dark Arts seminar."
Justin stood up and called, "That's not fair, there are more of us than
there are Slytherins here!"
Minerva levelled him with a look that had Justin sinking back down
into his seat, "That is exactly why Professor Potter is here today."
No one spoke out again after that, turning to one another as they ate
and whispered loudly amongst themselves.
"You look good Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said.
"Andromeda brewed me a healing potion," Harry said placidly.
"Oh, she was one of my favorite students," Madam Pomfrey said
with a found smile, "It was against the law for schools to administer
that degree of a healing potion as if prepared wrongly the effects can
be quite deadly. They aren't sold on the market for that very reason. I
am not surprised at all that Andromeda could manage such a potion.
She and her sisters caused quite a bit of trouble but their
performance in class was most excellent. Shame what happened to
Andromeda though, she never made anything of herself."
"Turned out better than her sisters, anyhow," Hagrid grumbled on
Pomfrey's other side.
Minerva shot her a glare.
"Are the rest of the students ganging up on the Slytherins?" Harry
asked.
"Yes," Pomfrey and Slughorn said in unison.
"How bad is it?" Harry asked.
They told him.
Harry was furious.
Harry was left alone in a large classroom with Slytherin house. Less
than twenty small haggard students stared up at him with
apprehension.
Harry pulled a chair out behind one of the desks and sat in front of
them so they were closer to eye level.
"So," Harry began, "I am Harry Potter. You can call me Harry."
Silence.
"I am here today because it appears the other three houses have
been behaving inexcusably. I want to know who did what to whom, I
want names and I want details."
"Why?" a first year girl asked. "You're a Gryffindor." The way she
said Gryffindor was the way others said mudblood.
"No, I was a Gryffindor, past tense. I don't know if you realized or
not, but I dropped out of school last year so I am not even a
graduate from this school."
"But all Gryffindors think Slytherins are evil even if they don't say it
out loud we know that's what they think," a boy, maybe a third year
said.
"I don't think that," Harry said. "I was almost sorted into Slytherin and
the man who got my parents killed was one of my dad's best friends,
he was in Gryffindor. Your sorting doesn't define you, it just gives you
a different family to grow up with."
"Sirius Black's entire family was in Slytherin," a fourth year
proclaimed. "People say he tricked the Sorting Hat so he could be a
spy when he grew up."
"Sirius Black was my godfather and one of my dearest loved ones.
He was wrongly convicted without a trail because of his family's
history. But he was, in fact, innocent. Peter Pettigrew was the traitor
and he wasn't from one of the old Pureblood families."
Silence.
Harry sighed, "Listen, you lot are underaged witches and wizards,
you have a lifetime ahead of you to make choices, mistakes, and to
make something of yourselves. For Heaven's sakes, Merlin was a
Slytherin. The woman I live with now was a Slytherin. There is
nothing wrong with self-preservation, family loyalty, street smarts, or
ambition. If there was no ambition in this world we would never
advance as a society.
"I am asking you to give me a chance. Tell me what's been
happening this year. I am not going to take any points off from
anyone, I am not going to feed your names back to the others. But
tell me what's really been going on and I can help to fix it. Or at least
I'll have three hours where I can take free potshots at the dolts who
think that war is a game."
More silence. But then one girl raised her hand.
She talked.
The floodgates opened and Harry was horrified but what he heard. It
was worse than what Pomfrey and Slughorn had been able to tell
him.
After the Slytherins had talked themselves out, Harry said, "Alright
well, I am going to knock the other houses down a peg or two. If that
doesn't work, I will be back to give them the magical work out of their
lives. But while I have you, how would you all like to learn the
Patronus charm?"
They gaped at him.
"But that is a NEWT level spell," a fourth year said.
"Nonsense, I learned it in my third year, and that was with a boggart
Dementor. Without a Dementor it is a pretty simple spell."
One first year boy said, "I can barely lift a feather."
A girl said, "One of the Gryffindors said Death Eaters can't produce
Patronuses."
"Firstly, none of you are Death Eaters. Not all Slytherins are Death
Eaters. Second, of course, they could, Professor Snape was a Death
Eater and his Patronus was a doe."
"But Professor Snape was evil," the girl retorted.
"Professor Snape was a triple agent and he did his best to keep
everyone alive. He wasn't a nice man but he was an excellent wizard
who died for his country."
Another awkward pause.
"Do you want to learn how to cast a Patronus charm or not?" Harry
asked.
They nodded their heads with an odd solemnness. Obviously, they
weren't expecting to be able to learn much.
"Cheer up," Harry said jovially, "I know a cheat for learning this
spell."
An hour later the entire Slytherin House had successfully cast a
Patronus Charm. To name a few, there was a dolphin, a parakeet, a
sparrow, an elephant, and even a sphinx. Which prompted Harry to
give that girl the riddle that sphinx in the Final Task had given Harry
during his fourth year. She got it on their first try.
They entered the Great Hall for lunch laughing and giggling, all
smiles and all of them talking happily to each other. Cheering charms
were an underrated magic.
When Harry took his seat at the head table all the other professors,
except for Trelawny who was trying to fish something out of her
goblet, were staring at him.
"What?" Harry asked.
"What did you do?" Slughorn asked.
"I taught a Defense lesson," Harry said cooly, successfully hiding his
own smile, he hadn't been affected by the cheering charms either.
"What did you teach them?" Flitwick asked leaning forward to see
Harry down the table.
The Slytherins were all smiling and chatting animately between
themselves.
"I taught them the Patronus charm. Not sure how many of them
could hold it against a dementor but they were all corporal," he
answered.
The teachers -even Trawlarny, turned to gawk at him now.
"But how?" Minerva asked, "That's a seventh year spell."
"Yeah, a seventh year spell I learned in my third year," he retorted.
"But you're Harry Potter," this from the new DADA professor who
reminded Harry uncomfortably of Lockhart.
"Well, I may have cast cheering charms while they were trying to
focus on a happy thought."
This statement was followed by a beat of silence.
Flitwick chuckled, "Clever, Mr. Potter."
"Indeed," Slughorn said, "you would have done well in Slytherin."
Harry shrugged, "The Sorting Hat thought so too, but it's a moot
point now."
Minerva wasn't disturbed by this, she just seemed happy to see
smiles on the Slytherins' faces. "You said all of them successfully
cast corporal patronuses."
Harry nodded.
She stood and announced to the student body, "Two hundred points
to House Slytherin for the entire house casting corporal Patronuses!"
Every teacher clapped. It was true that some of them had mixed
feelings about the concept of Slytherin but none of them liked seeing
how badly the young children had been treated by the others.
The Hufflepuff class clapped first, followed by Luna and Hermione,
then Ravenclaw House, and then, reluctantly, Gryffindor.
It was a good day for the Slytherins.
Harry was going to make sure that the other houses would realize
what they had been doing.
Harry entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom after
everyone else.
"Hey, Harry," Neville greeted with a smile.
"Neville," Harry said shortly.
"You got hot," Parvati said. Many people muttered their agreement.
One person whistled.
"You realize Voldemort used a silencing charm on us too?" Neville
asked, seeming peeved with how coldly Harry had addressed him.
Harry smirked, "Yes and if memory serves it didn't work because I
walked like a lamb to slaughter for the inhabitants of this school."
Neville's jaw ticked, "Has fame gone to your head? Do think you are
better than us now?"
Harry shook his head, "I didn't think so until the Headmistress invited
me to speak with you all, because apparently, three houses have
ganged up against the one. Breaking the arms of first years? So
much for you lot being the good guys."
"They are Slytherins!" a voice called from the crowd.
"They are children," Harry corrected. All under fourteen years old as
it happens. And I think they have been through enough without the
added layer of bullying."
"After what they did to us last year!" another cried out.
Harry crossed his arms, "Last year we were at war. Now it is time to
bury the hatchet and move on."
"Move on!?" Neville exclaimed, "You weren't here Harry, you don't
know what we went through."
Harry turned to him, "I am not the one who chose to come back to
school. By making the choice to attend classes at Hogwarts, it
means you must abide by the rules of a student. Fights between
students are normal. An entire house on a rotating schedule into the
hospital wing is not normal. It is not acceptable."
"More normal than what happened la-" another student but Harry cut
them off.
"No," his voice was hard, "No there is no possible reasonable excuse
to torture children. What happened last year was not okay either.
People have died, they are scared, lost family, their friends, it was a
terrible year, but do not forget that this was a civil war. There was no
outside force, we were fighting ourselves and the cost was high."
"You ran away from that cost!" a Ravenclaw girl shouted.
Someone echoed her and then someone got trigger happy.
A hex shot at Harry, he had neither time to uncross his arms nor
draw his wand. The hex pinged and fizzled against Harry's shield
nevertheless.
Thank you, Mrs. Andromeda Tonks.
His audience, his friends, and whoever his attacker had been, all
gaped at him.
Hermione stuttered, "Wandless magic? Where on Earth did you
learn that?"
"Andromeda Tonks is one hell of a witch," Harry answered. " And a
Slytherin as it happens. So who fired the shot, or would you rather
the Headmistress investigate the matter?"
The group of students stood back from the one who fired the spell.
"Really, Justin?" Harry asked smoothly. "You thought I couldn't
handle a stingy hex?"
Justin squared his shoulders. "You come here to lecture us," he
seethed. "You, who had nothing to lose. Your parents were already
dead, and you ran. Hiding in holes for a year while the rest of the
world went to hell and where have you been since the end? You
should have come back to Hogwarts or have gotten a job. Help us
rebuild, but no, you couldn't do that, could you? Because the only
reason you beat the Dark Lord was because you were just as much
a snake as he was."
Harry flicked his hand at the wrist towards the Hufflepuff, sending
him backward several meters skidding on his butt, again wandless. "I
did have people to lose and I lost them to the same cause, you prat.
Now, I don't give a damn about what any of you think about me. My
only reason for being here today is to ensure that Slytherin House
doesn't get beat out of existence. I know some of the pureblood's
talk can get nasty, but I lived with muggles who thought wizards were
a plague upon humanity. So forgive me if I feel everyone deserves a
chance to make their own choices. They are kids, half of you are
kids, it would be nice if we all tried not to make mistakes that will
haunt us for the rest of our lives."
"I don't disagree with what you're saying, Harry," Neville said, "but at
the same time you really can't tell us what to do."
"But Harry is right," Hermione said, "it is awful what has been done
to the Slytherins. They are just kids, right Ron?"
It was good to know that Hermione had been trying to give the call
for peace, but also depressing to realize that no one had listened to
her.
Weren't Ron and Hermione as famous as Harry was now?
But then Harry's fame hadn't done him much good most of the time
either. People only heard what they wanted to hear.
Ron shifted on his feet. "Right," he said, sounding a little uncertain.
"Longbottom is right!" a younger Gryffindor yelled. "You might be the
Boy Who Lived but you can't tell us what to do!"
Harry felt his expression darken, "Oh, can't I? Stop going out of your
way to abuse the Slytherins-"
"Or what? You might be the hero to the rest of the wizarding world
but here, you're just someone who showed up too late to prevent the
bad things from happening!" a fifth year Ravenclaw boy threw at him.
In his new body, with his black robes and extra inches of height,
there were those among the crowd who remembered Snape, and
they remembered that other Death Eaters had feared that particular
professor.
Harry's voice grew calmer, darker still, like the gathering of storm
clouds, "If I hear that one more first year Slytherin gets a limb
broken, I am going to come back to Hogwarts. I am going to drag the
culprit into the limelight with me, and I am going to explain -in detail,
what was done and that person will be lucky if detention is the only
thing they get. Because I think that when parents hear about what's
going on, they will be upset. I think the public pressure will ensure
that the person who did the crime is expelled and if they are old
enough, I have no doubts that the public pressure will ensure legal
charges as well."
"Fame made you a prick, Potter," Justin yelled from across the room
where he had stayed well away..
Harry shrugged, "If standing up for children's safety makes me a bad
person, so be it. I have nothing more to teach you today. So scram,
and remember what I said; next time I have to come here I will be
addressing you individually."
Their bravado may have let them talk back to Harry, but his threat
meant something. No one wanted to have the Boy Who Lived as a
personal was the man who had robbed Gringotts and killed
Voldemort in single combat.
Harry Potter was capable of anything.
As the class exited, they realized they hadn't had a Defense lesson,
just a dressing down. But then Harry had used wandless magic
against Justin… they counted themselves lucky.
Dean, Neville, Hannah, the Patil twins, Ginny, Luna, Ron, and
Hermione all hung back to talk with Harry.
"Sorry for giving you grief," Neville apologized.
"Just keep a look out for the little ones," Harry said, knowing he had
pushed Neville and that he had suffered last year, "The idea is that
we get better not worse after what we've been through. Learning our
lessons and all that."
Hermione ran up and hugged him, followed by Luna.
"Oh, Harry, I have missed you more than you know," Hermione said,
squeezing him tight.
He breathed her in, the scent of her both familiar and comforting.
"You were very good today," Luna said, "it was nice to see the little
ones smile."
"Yeah, they've had it tough," Dean said.
Hannah said, "What the hell happened to you? I mean Neville is
gorgeous, but he hit his growth spurt like a normal person. I thought
you had already been through yours?"
"Healing potion," Harry said in short.
"You really do look good," Hermione remarked, mussing his hair a
bit.
"Yeah mate," Ron said, stepping to Hermione's other side, "the
newspapers will be all over themselves to get new shots of you
now."
There was definite bitterness in his old friend's voice, just like there
always was.
"And that would be the benefit of living in the muggle world," Harry
quipped.
"How's Teddy?" Hermione asked, eying Ron.
Neither of them had confided in Ron what they had shared together
in the seventh year when he had run off into the woods and they
had…
Well, they had been fearful teenagers, fighting a war, hiding alone in
the woods, thinking they might not survive the year, and well, did
what normal bored teenagers did when they were bored.
It had been good, how could it not be when they trusted each other
as much as they did, but though Harry and Hermione would always
love each other, they weren't the end all be all for one another either.
Harry smiled down at her, "He is really good. He is the best thing to
have ever happened to me."
And he meant that. Teddy was his world, giving him a reason to live
when it felt like the majority of his life had been spent merely
surviving.
"Being a father suits you," Luna observed.
"You have a kid?" Dean asked, shooting a skeptical look at Ginny
who had yet to speak.
Harry clarified, "My godson, Teddy Lupin."
"Oh!" Dean said in understanding, "oh, well that makes a lot more
sense now. Tough break but I guess it's good you like it. I would not
be ready to raise a baby this year, that is for sure."
"Aside from the inter-House politics, how has the eighth year going?"
Harry asked in return.
Hermione sighed, looking truly grieved, "Not as much fun without
you or something trying to eat us, but we make do."
Harry laughed.
"Hagrid has done his best trying to compensate for that though," Ron
snarked.
They all laughed at that except for Luna who said, "I like Hagrid's
friends."
That just made them all laugh harder.
He flooed back home to find Andromeda asleep on the couch with
Teddy laying on her stomach, his head on her chest. Harry sat down
on the floor and put an arm across her and Teddy, resting his head
next to Andromeda's. He closed his eyes, breathing in the combined
scent of them, roses, jasmine, and baby oil. Harry was happier than
he had words for to have a home -to have a family- to return to.