Monday February 16
"Mirror?"
Harry touched his trouser pocket and nodded.
"Knife?"
Harry turned his fingers up, touching the sharp tip of the dagger in his wrist holster and nodded again.
"Invisibility Cloak?"
Harry patted his backpack.
"Kiss for luck?"
Harry glanced up to Fred and felt his own lips curl up to a small grin at the ridiculous pout Fred was giving him.
"You're stupid," he whispered as he stood on tiptoe to kiss him lightly.
"Yeah, but you're stuck with me," Fred winked.
Harry paused. He wasn't really stuck with Fred, Fred was stuck with him. Except, he wasn't, not really.
"Aht." Fred held his hand up as Harry opened his mouth. "I'm not breaking up with you because you're a little off right now. If you want to end it, then you have to go tell my mum and Fleur that the wedding is canceled."
Harry kicked the floor with his boots at Fred's drastic understatement of Harry being 'a little off'. He wasn't even Harry anymore, he was just a ghost pretending to be the person he used to be.
"Hey." Fred tilted his chin up and gave him a warm smile. "I love you. If you change your mind and decide to be a Hogwarts dropout, call me, alright? I'll answer. No matter what."
Harry bit his lip firmly to keep from accidentally voicing his thoughts aloud and nodded before stepping over to the floo.
"I love you," Fred said again.
"Love you," Harry said quietly. He grabbed a pinch of the floo powder from the vase on the mantle before throwing it in the flames. "Sirius Black's office!"
"Careful, Pup," Sirius said, reaching out to catch Harry as he stumbled from his fireplace. He waited until Harry slowly and purposefully pulled his arm from his grasp and backed up to look him over. He frowned at whatever he saw, causing Harry's fingers to tremble as he suddenly questioned how he looked. Fred said he looked great, but Fred was biased and Harry should have remembered that. "You sure this was a good idea?" Sirius asked evenly. "It wouldn't hurt any to wait a little longer."
"I'm fine," Harry said with much more conviction than he felt. He looked around Sirius' office, his lower lip harshly held between his teeth.
There were no dementors.
There were no ghosts.
Besides Harry of course.
"Fine," Harry repeated. He readjusted his bag on his shoulder and checked his watch. "I'm going to b-breakfast."
"I'll walk you," Sirius offered casually. He held the door open, giving Harry a mock bow and letting him leave first, before stepping right up beside him and keeping pace with Harry. "How was Fred?"
"Fine," Harry said shortly. He didn't want to talk about Fred. Fred was yet another person disappointed in Harry.
They'd had a small disagreement on Saturday when it had been Fred's turn to 'babysit' Harry and Harry told him he was coming back to Hogwarts. Not as bad as the row Harry had with Snape over it, but bad enough that Harry nearly changed his mind.
"Why would you go back?" Fred asked, sinking down on Harry's bed and staring sadly at him. "Stay here, please? Who cares about NEWTS?"
Harry didn't care about his NEWTS, he cared about his friends. "I can't k-keep them safe unless I'm there," he told him as he paced at the foot of the bed. "They n-need me, and 'm sick of b-being locked up here."
"What about you?" Fred demanded. "Who keeps you safe, Harry?"
Nobody.
The same as always.
"I would," Fred said gently. "I will. Just... just don't go back, please?"
Harry averted his eyes and rolled his shoulders. "I didn't m-mean to say that," he grit out irritably.
"Exactly," Fred said. He stood up and grabbed Harry's hands and pulled him to him, letting Harry curve his torso against Fred's in an effort to touch as much of him as humanly possible. "Darlin, you're going to be miserable. You're going to accidentally say something you were only thinking, or trip over your words, and you're going to hate it. Don't go."
"I have to," Harry said flatly. "End of d-discussion."
"Excellent teamwork skills," Fred scowled, dropping Harry's hands and stepping away from him. "Really bloody glad we can talk this through together."
Harry turned to storm out of their room, then paused in the doorway. "We don't fight," he said quietly. "Am I d-dreaming?"
Fred had Harry back in his arms in an instant. "You're not dreaming, and we aren't fighting. I'm sorry. Come lay down and we can talk about it, please?"
Snape was all fiery temper, putting Harry on edge as he waited to get burnt. Fred was a gentle stream turned rough by a storm, and Harry would rather not drown again.
"Not happy about you coming back then?" Sirius guessed with shrewd accuracy.
Harry shrugged silently.
Sirius sighed and then smiled as he gestured to the Great Hall entrance. "I think I know a group of people who will be," he said.
Harry reached for the door then pulled his hand back. "This was a m-mistake," he said. "I should... I should go."
"No." Sirius put his hands on Harry's shoulders and gave him a solemn look. "Do I think you could have taken a little more time to recover? Yeah. But you didn't. You know yourself, you know what you can handle. So," Sirius grabbed Harry's hand with his and moved it back to the handle, "go."
Harry thrummed his fingers on the golden handle of the door as he felt a staggering wave of déjà vu strike him. He'd been here before. He'd stood in this spot before. He'd been nervous to enter this room before. Harry looked over at Sirius and aimed for nonchalance in his tone, "I'm- I'm awake, yeah?"
"Yes," Sirius' voice was unwavering. "You are awake. This isn't a dream. You are alive. You are not a ghost. Your friends are waiting."
Harry laughed, although he tried to do it quietly, and nodded. He slowly opened the door and slipped inside, attempting to do so as unobtrusively as possible. It worked, for a second or two, and Harry stood in front of the door and looked around quickly.
There aren't dementors here. Snape said there wouldn't be, never again.
"Exactly," Sirius murmured, having slipped in the room when Harry did. "Go, sit."
Harry's eyes flicked over to his friends, catching Neville's eyes. Neville stood up and waved happily, causing a sudden hush in the hall as the students all turned to look at him.
Fuck.
"Lift your chin, narrow your eyes, and strut to your seat," Sirius murmured quietly as Harry felt the beginnings of panic spotting his forehead with perspiration. "Now."
Harry didn't stop to question it. He just lifted his chin, narrowed his eyes, and strutted over to the Slytherin table. Susan immediately scooted down a little, making sure Harry had plenty of space in his old seat.
The other students were deathly silent as they watched Harry, until Snape cleared his throat pointedly from the Head Table and sent an acidic glower across the hall.
"Prats," Susan murmured as conversations picked back up at a much higher level than they had been. She turned to Harry and smiled, "Not you, of course."
"Why're they l-looking at me?" Harry breathed, turning his head so only Susan could read his lips.
Did they know? In some part of their hearts, did they know Harry was a ghost?
"You're a hero, again," Susan murmured back. "Framed for murder, unfairly arrested, imprisoned, then released? They think you're a bloody hero, Harry."
"Abracadabra," Harry whispered. He turned back to the others and gave them an uncertain test smile.
His test failed, as nobody smiled back.
Except Trent.
"I've got so much to tell you," Trent said eagerly with a huge smile. "You first though, what have you been doing?"
"Nothing," Harry said truthfully. He crept one hand up on the table and reached for the pitcher of water, sloshing it as his hands shook roughly.
"I'll get it," Theo said, taking the pitcher from Harry and quickly pouring him a glass.
"Here," Ron slid Harry an overflowing plate of food.
"Coffee?" Draco offered him.
"Or tea?" Neville said.
Harry tucked both hands beneath his legs and stared at them all incredulously.
"You're making him think he's dreaming again," Luna hummed quietly. "You aren't," she added to Harry. "Except, I suppose life is what you make it, so it's a bit like all of us are dreaming all the time, aren't we?"
Harry blinked.
"Don't say that to him," Hermione snapped at Luna with a scowl. "He's already confused."
Harry blinked again as a full blown argument broke out between Hermione, Luna, Theo, and Draco.
Then he got up and walked right back out of the room.
Harry nearly made it to the main entrance when quiet feet caught up with him and he looked over to see Blaise walking beside him, a small smirk of amusement on his face.
"You sure know how to create chaos," he drawled. "Hermione called Luna a 'twit' and Susan drew her wand."
Harry nodded. That sounded right.
"Where are we off to?" Blaise asked as he followed Harry outside.
"Forest," Harry said shortly.
Blaise glanced over at Harry, his brows turned upward in amusement. "Do you have two?"
Harry stopped mid-step and furrowed his own brows at Blaise. "Two what?"
"Two cigarettes, fags," Blaise said. "I presume that was why we were headed to the forest?"
"Did... did I say that?" Harry asked, his nerves skyrocketing now. He didn't think he did. But he couldn't go to classes today, be around people period, if he kept spouting off every mad thing he thought.
"No," Blaise said with a casual shrug. "It was a guess."
"Good," Harry sighed. He resumed his stroll towards the forest and begrudgingly gave Blaise a small grin. "I've g-got a whole pack. Snape bought them."
Blaise laughed, bright and loud and happy. "Harry Potter, master of the impossible," he said. "Let's freeze to death while we poison our bodies and I'll fill you in on the hot gossip you've missed."
Harry propped himself against a tree and passed Blaise the little muggle lighter that he nicked from Sirius and the pack of cigarettes that Snape bought him when he said he was 'sick of Harry mooching off Black'. Harry watched as Blaise swung his hand around, his cigarette mostly burning itself out, while he told Harry endless gossip that Harry had missed.
Harry listened, a bit. Mostly he just focused on moving the smoke in and out of his lungs, imagining it swirling to his hands and easing the trembling in his fingers.
"And of course Padma's been looking everywhere for you."
"What?" Harry refocused on Blaise at that sudden shift from Ron and Daphne's tension since their Valentine's Day date to this new topic. "P-Padma?"
"The female Ravenclaw twin in our year," Blaise said. He stomped lightly on his cigarette as Harry lit himself a second one. "She said the two of you struck a deal of some sort and she has something for you."
Harry inhaled and tried to rack his memory for a deal he struck with a female twin before shaking his head. "Dunno," he said, mystified by the statement. "I'll ask her later."
"You do that," Blaise winked. "Shall we head to class or are we skipping?"
Harry gave the half smoked cigarette in his hand a longing look before dropping it by his feet and stamping it out. "Class, I guess." He ran his hands through his hair, patting it down to the best of his abilities. "D-do I look alright?"
"A bit pale and scrawny, but reasonably handsome," Blaise said, causing Harry to snort a little.
Of course he was scrawny, he'd lost enough weight since he'd been arrested that he could see his rib bones when he'd gotten dressed that morning. And obviously he was pale, all ghosts were.
Harry and Blaise were nearly back to the castle when Blaise stopped him and put a hand on Harry's shoulder.
"You're not a ghost," he said quietly. "You're Harry, the same Harry you always were."
Harry looked at his dark golden eyes, so genuine without any hint of their usual playfulness, and squashed the urge to laugh. "Ta," he said instead. "Let's get this sh-shit over with."
Blaise chuckled and the awkward moment passed. "You look more like an inferi anyway," he said as they passed back through the giant castle doors. "More 'reanimated zombie' and less 'lost soul haunting the earth'."
"P-prat," Harry grinned.
"G-g-git," Blaise faux-stammered with a wink and a smirk.
Harry arrived to potions a few minutes late and felt heat creeping up his neck as his arrival turned everyone's attention to him in the classroom.
"Harry!" Professor Slughorn cried. He got up from his desk and strode quickly to where Harry was frozen in place, grabbing Harry's hand in his larger and meatier ones and shaking it quickly. "Dear boy, I can't tell you how pleased I am to have you back. How are you?"
Harry would say 'fine' three more times before he refused to answer that question ever again.
"Fine," he said. Harry looked around the room, tilting his head around Slughorn and sighed quietly at the lack of dementors or ghosts. Though he did blanch to see that Theo and Hermione were partnered, and Ron and Daphne were partnered, which left Harry to partner with Draco.
Harry bit his tongue as his mind fuzzed over while he stared at Draco.
Draco was never in Azkaban. Draco was at Hogwarts. Lucius was at Azkaban. And he's out now too. He's at home, with Cissa. You saw him last night.
"...get started."
Harry blinked away the white spots threatening his vision and looked at Slughorn. "I'm s-sorry, sir. What?"
Slughorn didn't look put out by Harry's odd behavior, he just smiled broadly and put his hand on Harry's shoulder, guiding him towards the seat beside Draco. "I said that you missed the testing portion for the Polyjuice, but you and Draco earned full points on the project. If you have a seat, we'll get started. I think you'll enjoy today's lesson," he winked.
Harry sat on the edge of his seat, gripping the table with tense and white knuckles. He glanced to his left and twitched at the sight of Draco. Everything was beginning to feel fuzzy now.
Draco.
Slughorn's voice.
Harry's skin.
"Ow." Harry hissed as Draco abruptly leant towards him and pinched his thigh rather hard. He glared at Draco, but Draco just shook his head and tilted his head towards Harry, turning a bit so his mouth was directly by Harry's ear.
"Not a dream," he whispered. "Not a ghost, either."
"I know that," Harry hissed back at him.
Though, after listening to Slughorn outline the steps for the new potion they'd be working on, Amortentia, Harry looked over at Draco again and gave him a grateful nod. Draco grinned shyly and Harry felt the fuzz prickling his skin dissipate a little.
When potions ended, in which Harry did a lot of pointing at instructions while Draco prepped ingredients, Harry was abruptly surrounded by his friends.
"I'm sorry about this morning," Hermione said with a blush. She hesitantly grabbed Harry's hand and he relished in the grounding feeling of her soft fingers in his. "Are you upset?"
"No," he said truthfully.
Theo gave Harry a true smile, a spark of joy deep in his brown eyes. "Come on, let's get to defense."
"He's missed you," Hermione whispered to Harry, explaining Theo's odd joy.
How long had Harry been gone? It felt like years, decades even, but... but he'd taken his potion just a few days ago, so it could only be...
"It's the sixteenth, you've been gone a month and two days," Ron said.
Harry turned to scowl at Ron, misplacing his annoyance at his own inability to shut the hell up on to Ron, then faltered when he saw Ron's face. He stopped in the middle of the corridor, causing his friends to stop with him, and narrowed his eyes at Ron's droopy face.
"What happened?" Harry asked flatly.
Ron caught Harry's eyes then averted his gaze to the side. He shrugged while his tell-tale ears turned red. "Nothing important," he muttered.
Harry didn't move. He waited. His hand also subconsciously floated to his pocket, fingering the cool mirror in his pocket.
"For God's sake," Draco huffed. "Ron's upset because something happened with Daphne on his oh so romantic Valentine's Day date and now they're as awkward as first years. Was that so difficult?" he asked Ron.
"I said it wasn't important," Ron grit out, his cheeks now as red as his ears.
"Why isn't it imp-important?" Harry asked curiously, slowly resuming their walk to defense at Hermione's gentle tug.
Ron shrugged and looked like he was attempting to hide his ears with his shoulders. "More important things going on, aren't there, mate?"
Harry looked around them, quickly checking for dementors or ghosts, then turned back to Ron. "Er... n-not really, no."
Theo, inexplicably, snickered and threw his arm over Harry's shoulder. Harry tried not to lean in to the touch, trying hard to be as aloof and carefree as he was sure he had been when he'd been alive, but Theo tightened his arm and stepped closer to him, so Harry probably failed.
"He means you, Harry," Theo muttered as they joined the more busy corridor leading up to Sirius' classroom. "He thinks it would be selfish to talk about his relationship problems when you just got out of fucking Azkaban."
"Oh."
Susan, Blaise, Neville, and were waiting for them at the doorway of the defense classroom though, dropping Harry's thoughts of Ron's relationship problems out of his mind.
"Sorry about this morning," Susan breathed, throwing her arms around Harry's neck and hugging him. Harry, who had one hand held by Hermione, and his other arm pinned by Theo, had a mad desire to laugh at the amount of people flinging themselves on him today.
Harry bit his tongue hard enough to taste a small amount of blood when Susan pulled herself off him. If he didn't bite his tongue, he might have asked her to keep holding on to him, and they had class, so that would be mad.
Theo also dropped his arm, and Hermione let go of his hand, and Harry was suddenly floating. He looked down at his feet with detached curiosity, but they looked like they were still attached to the stone floors.
His vision couldn't be trusted though.
He still saw Lily Potter stalking him with ice in her eyes and daggers in her hands when he turned a corner too quickly.
"Ow!" Harry looked up from his feet and met Susan's teal eyes right in his face. He brought a hand up to rub at his neck. "Did you pinch me?"
"It worked," Susan shrugged with a cheeky grin. She offered Harry her arm, "Come on, darliiiiing, let's go learn some top notch defense, hmm?"
Harry shuffled his feet, ensuring that he was walking and not floating, and then linked his arm with Susan's with a nod.
Sirius was bouncing on the balls of his feet in the front of the classroom as everyone made their way inside. Susan went to lead Harry to their old table up front, but Harry pulled on her arm lightly and went to a corner table in the back.
He knew ghosts could float through walls, so they could float right through him when they were ready to show themselves again, but dementors couldn't. If a dementor came in through the door or the windows behind Sirius, Harry would be the first to see it.
"Good morning!" Sirius called brightly to everyone, ending the unsubtle glances the other students were shooting Harry. "Today we're shifting our focus from vampires to-" Sirius tapped the chalkboard beside him with his wand, causing a whole boards worth of information to appear, "inferi," he said.
Harry glanced towards Blaise, who was seated with Neville. Blaise winked and Harry felt a small grin settle on his lips.
Harry traced the worn wooden pattern of the desk as Sirius spoke about inferi. How they were made, how they were killed, the best way to protect yourself if you came face to face with them.
You couldn't be an inferi.
Harry touched his pocket and felt the outline of the muggle lighter that technically belonged to the Professor lecturing in the front of the room, and nodded to himself.
He couldn't be an inferi, Blaise was joking.
Harry tapped Susan's wrist, interrupting her tidy scribble as she took notes. He pulled the quill free from her fingers and wrote a note on the bottom of her parchment:
Do I look more like an inferi or ghost?
Susan bit her lower lip to stifle a laugh as she took her quill back.
Neither. You look like a normal wizard named Harry Potter.
Harry grinned when she handed him back the quill.
Ugh, that's worse really.
Susan's giggle interrupted Sirius, who quirked a brow at them. "Everything good, Harry, Susan?"
"Yes, sir," Susan said politely while Harry nodded.
They shared a secret smile after Sirius went back to talking that made Harry think that coming back to Hogwarts had been a decent decision after all.
Until after class anyway, when Harry had been caught off guard and abruptly shoved in to a wall by a sneering Finnigan.
"You think you're a big shot because you got released?" he said, right in Harry's face, as other students stopped to witness the spectacle. "We all know you deserved to be there!"
Yeah.
Harry was well aware of that. What he wasn't aware of was...
"Who m-made it your fuckin' b-business?" Harry scowled, pushing Finnigan out of his face and knocking him back a couple steps.
"It's my 'b-b-business' when a bloody murderer is roaming around Hogwarts!" Finnigan yelled, drawing a laugh from a few of the watching students as he mimicked Harry's stammer.
"Careful, Seamus," Susan said, stepping up beside Harry as he grit his jaw and bit his tongue, hard. "Be a shame if one of us earned some time in Azkaban."
Finnigan, who really was every bit the brash and hot-headed Gryffindor that everyone described him as, side-stepped Susan to glare directly at Harry. "You look rough, Potter," he sneered. He looked Harry over from top to bottom and curled his lip as he obviously found him lacking. "I guess the dementors didn't want your autograph?"
Harry automatically looked around. There weren't any dementors, but there was a hell of an audience watching him. "I suppose you do?" Harry drawled, trying to force some scorn in his voice to replace the hesitancy that the whole situation filled him with. Was he really in a fight on his first day back? "Is that a G-Gryffindor thing?" Harry asked Finnigan. "Getting an autograph from your b-boggart?"
Harry's friends loyally laughed as Finnigan turned an ugly shade of puce before smirking at Harry.
"What about your b-b-boggart, Potter?" Finnigan mocked him, loudly. "Is it still Daddy Snape or d'you think the dementors have that honor now?"
Harry hadn't even thought about it, he just felt a wave of rage and pulled his fist back and cracked his knuckles as he slammed it right in Finnigan's mouth. Finnigan staggered backwards and Harry shook off Susan's half-hearted restraining hand as he advanced on him.
"Don't ever talk about my boggart," Harry hissed. He got right in Finnigan's face and quoted something insane he'd heard Sirius once say, "I don't mind earning a stay in Azkaban. G-got it?"
It was a lie.
But Harry hoped Finnigan didn't know that.
"You're mad," Finnigan spat, backing away quickly. "You shouldn't be in Azkaban, you should be in St Mungo's with the loonies!"
Neville suddenly broke through the crowd and tackled Finnigan, knocking him to the wall, and they began fighting in earnest. Harry would have intervened to help Neville, but Neville didn't much look like he needed help, and Professor McGonagall came running up on the scene anyway.
"Finnigan! Longbottom! What is the meaning of this?" she demanded, waving her wand and forcing the boys apart.
"Misunderstanding." Finnigan spat a mouthful of blood on the floor by his boots and quickly vanished it with his wand.
"Longbottom?" McGonagall turned to Neville, giving him one of her infamous stern stares.
"Misunderstanding," Neville echoed Finnigan, stuffing his hands in his pockets with a look of defiance.
"Twenty points from Gryffindor for lying to my face," McGonagall said. She turned to the rest of the students and gave them all an unimpressed look. "Get to lunch, everyone."
Harry waited a beat too long to turn towards the staircase with the others because McGonagall suddenly called his name. "Walk with me, Harry."
Harry froze and clenched Susan's hand.
Did she see him hit Finnigan?
Was he going to Azkaban for it?
How long would he have to stay for a single punch?
You are never going back there, Timmy hissed in his mind. Never.
Leave me alone, Harry hissed back. He tried to build his once impenetrable walls back up, but they were flimsy. Timmy could break them with a heavy sigh if he wanted. He didn't though, his presence just slithered out of Harry's mind as abruptly as it first appeared.
"Harry?" McGonagall was standing in front of Harry now, peering down at him with concern in her warm hazel eyes. "I did not see you hit Finnigan, and, as I presume you did not purposefully admit such a thing to me, I will pretend to not have heard it. I merely wanted to see if you would be amenable to having lunch with me today?"
Harry checked McGonagall's hands quickly.
No handcuffs.
She didn't even have her wand out anymore.
"I didn't do it," Harry said on autopilot. "I'm sorry."
"She's not arresting you," Susan murmured beside him. "She's on your side."
Harry laughed.
Nobody was on his side.
Harry was a one-man army, just as he'd always been.
Susan's light twitch at Harry's laugh did clear some of the fog from his mind though, so he nodded at McGonagall, desperate now to save face as he'd already made himself a spectacle once today.
"Yes, ma'am," he said quietly. "We can have l-lunch."
"Excellent," McGonagall smiled down at him. "Come along then, I have something I'd like to discuss with you."
Harry silently trailed behind her, once more questioning reality as his current situation felt rather surreal. Maybe... maybe he did get arrested for hitting Finnigan and they put him back in his cell and everything since then was a dream?
His belief that this was a dream only increased as McGonagall brought him to her office and took a seat across from him and smiled.
Even before Harry died, he was certain people didn't smile like that at him.
"Ma'am?"
"Yes?"
Harry glanced around warily and pinched his wrist. "Am- is this a dream?"
"It is not," McGonagall said, not showing any reaction at all to the odd question. "I have been thinking quite a bit about you, Harry. And, I thought I may have found an excellent extra credit project you may like to work on."
"Extra credit," Harry repeated slowly. "I- are- my grades that b-bad?"
He knew he'd missed a decent amount of school, but he'd had relatively high grades before he'd been arrested left.
"Not at all," McGonagall assured him. She tapped her desk with her wand, causing a platter of sandwiches and fruit to appear before she tapped it again and a crystal pitcher full of cold water popped up as well with two glasses. "Eat up, Harry, and I'll explain my idea."
Harry scoffed quietly and tucked his hands beneath his legs. If McGonagall wasn't eating the food, neither was he. No matter how hungry he was.
McGonagall watched as a small spark of defiance grew in Harry's eyes and she tsk'd at him before plucking up a sandwich and taking a bite. "Do eat," she said after she swallowed. "I hate eating in front of someone."
Harry gingerly reached for a ripe strawberry and snatched it quickly, holding it up and inspecting it slowly. It... it didn't look poisoned, honestly. He took a bite and tasted it carefully. It didn't taste poisoned either.
"Now, I believe that your current course load is insufficient for a boy of your talents," McGonagall said. She poured two glasses of water and took a drink before pushing one in front of Harry. "Wouldn't you agree?"
"I... maybe?" Harry said uncertainly.
"It is," McGonagall said. "And, so, I have a challenge for you, and a handsome reward if you are able to complete it."
She had Harry's complete attention as she leaned forward and smiled conspiratorially at him.
"Have you ever wanted to become an animagus?"
***
When Harry's friends found him a couple hours later, it was in the library with Padma Patil, hidden behind a towering stack of books that threatened to topple every time he snatched a new one off the top.
"Harry?" Susan laughed quietly as she peered around the books. "Where have you been? We've been looking for you for ages."
"Here," Harry murmured distractedly. "'M busy."
"Busy with..." Theo plucked up a book and cocked his head at it. "Great animagus transformations of the 19th century? And..." he glanced curiously at Padma. "And with Padma?"
"Yes," Harry snapped, snatching the book back out of Theo's hands. "It's a p-project."
"And Harry and I had some business to take care of," Padma said primly. She got to her feet and smiled at Harry. "Thanks again, Harry."
Harry nodded in acknowledgment, partially relieved when she left and he didn't have to bite his tongue anymore, and partially wistful as she had been one of the few people he'd seen that day that wasn't a ghost.
"What business did you have with Padma?" Ron asked him curiously.
Harry waved a stack of essays, charmed to mimic his handwriting, in the air. "P-Padma and Parvati got to move out of their p-parents house, and Padma wrote all my essays while I was gone."
"Bloody genius," Ron breathed.
"Cheater," Hermione grinned.
Harry looked up at her briefly and cocked his head to the side. "D-didn't you write my essays when I had been in the hospital th-third year? Or... or did I dream that?"
"I did," Hermione assured him quickly. "I was only joking about you being a cheater. I mean, it is cheating, but who cares?"
That made no sense so Harry swung his eyes to Draco, relatively certain he wasn't a ghost, and raised his brows.
"I am not a ghost, you are not dead, this isn't a dream, Granger is just more lenient than she used to be," Draco said. "Tell us about your project?" he asked slowly, taking the chair across from Harry and slinging his bag on the table. Harry scowled as he had to quickly steady the books to ensure they didn't fall. "What's it for? If Padma wrote your essays?"
Harry's lips twitched in to a smile as he remembered what McGonagall said. "'A tried and true m-method to escape any future wrongful imprisonments'," he said. "It's for a challenge."
Harry didn't see it, as he was furiously scribbling away on his parchment, but his friends exchanged worried glances.
"Have you ate today?" Hermione asked gently.
"Yes."
He ate two strawberries with McGonagall.
"And you're feeling okay?" Ron asked.
Harry looked up and scowled harder at the looks of concern they were all giving him. Well. Luna didn't look concerned, she looked interested in one of the books in Harry's stack. And Blaise didn't look concerned either, he looked bored. The others though, they all looked concerned.
"I'm fine," Harry said after taking a deep breath. "And two."
Ron scrunched his nose. "Two, what?"
"'M going to say 'I'm fine' two m-more times before I explode," Harry said calmly. "And I've never seen a ghost explode, but it's p-probably disgusting, yeah?"
"You aren't a ghost," Theo said. He sat next to Harry and read his notes over his shoulder. "Ghosts can't write three bloody feet of notes. Damn, Harry, what did McGonagall promise you? Everlasting life?"
Harry snorted. He had a red rock for that if he wanted it, which he very much did not no matter how much Timmy tried to convince him otherwise.
Why not, Little Horcrux?
You're the most annoying person I've ever met.
Think of it- all those that opposed us, torn down as easily as those despicable muggles. We could start with the irksome Irish boy.
Harry snorted again and closed his eyes, clearing his mind, and mentally stacking bricks around the edges of his head.
Mind your own business, noseless.
"Harry...?"
Harry opened his eyes then immediately rolled them at the looks he was now getting. "I'm not crazy," he said quickly. "Timmy was talking."
"Yeah, that doesn't sound crazy at all," Blaise smirked.
Harry shrugged and moved the entire stack of books off to the side, carefully jotting down their titles, as he suddenly remembered a new task he needed to complete.
"Mione, any idea what 'Little Horcrux' means?"
Hermione looked confused, but Theo seemed to abruptly start choking. Harry watched curiously as he thumped himself on the chest and turned red.
"Wha- who-" Theo looked around the library nervously before waving his wand around the table the rest of Harry's gang quickly sat at and shielded them from eavesdroppers. "Are you trying to get arrested?" he hissed.
Very much, incredibly desperately, with absolute certainty, not.
Harry imagined he had paled at the mere idea as Theo's affect softened and he groaned quietly. "Let's talk in the dorms about it, alright?" he whispered, sounding more than a bit paranoid. "It'll be more private than the bloody library."
"Alriiight," Harry said slowly. Theo's obvious paranoia was causing Harry to itch. He pinched his wrist again and got to his feet carefully. "You guys wanna go to the d-dorm then?"
"Oh!" Luna gave Harry a blinding smile. "Can we have a sleepover?"
"Yes!" Trent pumped his fist in the air. "Celebration sleepover!"
"What are we celebrating?" Harry asked, bemused.
"Neville's excellent right hook, of course," Blaise laughed. "Come on, let's go get some food from the kitchens and head to the dorms."
***
Harry and his friends entered the Slytherin common room, arms buried under piles of food gifts from the house-elves that had been overjoyed to see Harry return, and Harry was immediately assaulted with loud cheers, whistles, and rambunctious clapping.
"Dead," he whispered to whoever was beside him as he stared around incredulously. "I'm dead. My b-body's in Azkaban."
"Increased status as a celebrity, not dead," Blaise murmured back quietly. "Pains of fame, remember?"
"If you say so."
"We knew you were innocent," an older student Harry didn't know said as he stepped forward and offered Harry his hand pompously. "As soon as they said they found Goyle in a corridor, I said, 'couldn't be Harry, he's smarter than that', didn't I, Meng?"
"He did," a girl, apparently named Meng, said. "The Heir of Slytherin, leaving a body in the middle of the hall? An obvious setup!"
Harry bit his tongue once more as he briefly shook the boys hand and debated what was going on.
This would be an odd dream to have, but would it be any more odd than the ones where he turned in to a phoenix and burnt to ashes every month and then was forced to rebirth and continue living?
"That's enough," Susan yelled, quickly calming down the noise in a way Harry had only seen Snape do before. A few of the younger kids actually looked downright terrified of Susan for some reason. "Leave Harry alone, he doesn't want bothered by you lot."
"I mean, thanks for thinking I didn't do it?" Harry said, everything feeling unreal and confusing. "Except you didn't really keep me from b-being arrested, so... so I g-guess it doesn't mean much, does it?"
A few of the students blushed at Harry's bluntly spoken truth, but most of them seemed to have gotten the message. Except for Daphne Greengrass, who came strutting straight up to Harry with her chin jutted out and a nervous look in her eyes.
"Harry, may I speak with you?" She glanced at Harry's gawking friends, including Ron who looked as puzzled as Harry was, and bit her bottom lip for a second. "In private, maybe?"
So she could kill him? No.
"I'm not going to kill you!" she cried. "I just... I need to speak with you. It is important."
Harry glanced at Ron, who raised his brows and shrugged, then at Susan, who was watching Daphne suspiciously with narrowed eyes.
"We can go to m-my dorm," Harry offered. "They're coming too, though."
Daphne sighed as she looked at Harry's close knit and curious group. "I expected that," she said. "Yes, that would be fine."
Ron tried to pull her off to the side, ask her what was going on, as they made their way unimpeded to the dorm, but Daphne just shook her head and pursed her lips. She refused to say a word until they all trooped in to the dorm and closed the door behind them.
"Sit, please," she told Harry softly, gesturing to his bed. "You look unwell, and I probably should have waited to do this, but..." she glanced at Ron and Harry saw a flash of remorse in her eyes before she looked back at Harry. "But I have to do it now."
Harry laughed shortly. Did she not realize that she couldn't kill him? Abracadabra, he's already dead.
"I- I don't know what that means," Daphne said with a frown.
"He's obviously exhausted," Susan said hastily, stepping up beside Harry and gently guiding him to his bed where she then lightly pushed him down to sit on the edge. "Can't this wait?"
"No."
"It's fine," Harry waved Susan off, his curiosity mounting at Daphne's behavior. "What's going on?"
Daphne took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and kept her blue eyes on Harry's as she spoke. "My sister, Astoria, did you know that she was born with a very rare heart disease?"
"No?" Was he meant to know that? Harry looked at his friends, who had edged to his side of the room and were facing Daphne with confused expressions and felt a small bit of relief.
"Well she was," Daphne said factually. "My father was also very sick when she was born, he died a few years ago, before I started Hogwarts."
Did she think that just because Harry was a ghost that he'd know how to talk to her dead father?
"That is just to say that my family was doing very badly when Astoria was born. My mother couldn't work, it was a very hard pregnancy, Astoria was sick, she needed constant treatments that were terribly expensive, and my father was also sick."
"So you need money?" Draco interrupted her.
"No." Daphne tossed her hair over her shoulder a bit haughtily. "We're much better now because someone offered to pay for Astoria's treatments. If he hadn't done so, she would have died before my father did."
Harry looked up at Susan and Theo, who were both flanking either side of him, and caught Theo's eyes.
Theo shrugged then quickly reached out and pinched the hell out of Harry's ear.
Not a ghost right now then. And it wasn't a dream.
"Right," Harry said when Daphne stopped speaking to watch Theo and Harry's brief interaction. "B-brill? I guess? I'm happy she's alive?"
Harry didn't personally know Astoria, but he was pretty sure that Trent had some sort of odd love-triangle thing going on with her and Sapphire before Harry died.
"Thank you, though that wasn't the point of my story," Daphne said. "I do not like to carry debt, of any kind, to any person."
Understandable.
"So I wanted to find a way to pay that person back, although I knew I would never have the money to do so."
Snape said that you never have to use your body to pay any person, for anything, at any time, for any reason. But maybe nobody told Daphne that until it was too late.
"Shut up," Susan whispered, stomping on Harry's foot as Daphne gaped at him. "Merlin, Harry. Bite your tongue."
"I did not sleep with the Headmaster," Daphne declared hotly as Harry blushed and realized he'd once again been thinking aloud.
"The Headmaster?" Neville asked, taking the spotlight off Harry immediately. "That's who paid for your sister's medical bills?"
"It was," Daphne said stiffly. "I believe I've heard that he has done similarly for multiple others in the past."
"He offered to pay for Mum and Dad's stay at St Mungo's, but Gran told him no," Neville said.
"As my mother and I preferred to not have Astoria die, we did not turn down his generous offer."
Someone scoffed, a sentiment Harry generally agreed with. So the Headmaster was generous when it came to sick baby girls and tortured members of his order, but an orphaned baby hero just got dumped on a doorstep and never checked on again? Got it.
"Good for you," Harry said flatly. He could feel exhaustion creeping through his body and didn't fancy wasting the last of his evening listening to how wonderful Dumbledore was. "B-bye."
"You haven't let me finish," Daphne said.
"Do it quick then," Hermione said waspishly. "None of us are in the Albus Dumbledore Fan Club, if you haven't noticed."
"I... have," Daphne said slowly, that guilty look appearing in her uneasy eyes once more. "And I'm sure you're about to be quite angry, which is why I wanted to tell you all that first, so you would understand where I had been coming from, Harry. You understand wanting to pay back debts, right?"
Harry would never owe Dumbledore a debt. If Theo had been sick, Snape would heal him. If Trent needed horribly expensive treatments, Harry or Sirius would pay for them. Harry would rather die than feel that he owed Dumbledore a damn thing...
So maybe he did understand a bit.
"Sure," he shrugged.
"Okay, so..." Daphne took a deep breath and Harry realized that he was about to hear something he very much did not want to hear. "So when the Headmaster asked me if I would occasionally inform him about what you were up to, you would understand that I only wanted to pay back a debt, right?"
Harry was on his feet with his dagger in his hand, at her throat, in an instant.
"You did what?" he hissed.
Kill her, Little Horcrux. Hide her body in Salazar's Chamber. Your followers will assist you.
GO THE FUCK AWAY, TIMMY! I don't want you in my head!
"I'm sorry," Daphne cried, tears springing in her eyes as Harry pushed her backwards until her back hit the door and she couldn't back up anymore. "Harry, I swear, I didn't tell him anything bad! I don't really even know anything!"
"What the fuck did you tell him?!" Susan demanded, instantly appearing on Harry's right side with her wand drawn.
"I don't remember it all!" Daphne said. "Please, Harry, I'm so sorry. I wanted to come clean so I could apologize to you and-" she glanced over Harry's shoulder towards Ron, "-and there wouldn't be any secrets."
"For how bloody long, huh?" Ron yelled. "How long, Daphne??"
"Last September when I joined the team, that's when he asked me," Daphne said, whimpering when Harry pressed the blade down a little harder on her throat. "Please, please, I didn't even know anything. I told him- I told him about the defense club, the knives and guns, and you sneaking out, and that was it! Besides that, I don't know anything!"
"So you told him everything you did know?" Susan hissed dangerously. "What, if we told trusted you with real secrets then you would have told him?"
"I don't know," Daphne said. The tears in her eyes spilled over and ran down her cheeks, distracting Harry for a moment as they sparkled in the candlelight of the room. "Not anymore though, I swear. Harry, Ron, I'm so sorry."
Draco narrowed his eyes at Daphne and pulled his wand out as well. "Were you using Ron to get closer to Harry?"
"No! No! Ron, I swear! That's why I wanted to come clean," she said quickly. "I... I like you, Ron. Truly. I didn't ask you out because of Dumbledore, I asked you out in spite of it."
"Kill her," Ron said flatly. He turned his back in disgust. "Snitches get stabbed, or whatever."
"Snitches get stitches," Harry corrected him absently. His mind was whirling as he stared at Daphne hard and considered what she said. More importantly, he considered when she said it. He abruptly dropped his knife, causing it to clatter as it hit the floor, and he opened the dorm door. "Get out."
"What?"
"I d-didn't stutter," Harry said. "You waited until you knew I wouldn't kill you to tell me, d-didn't you? Or did D-Dumbledore put you up to it? Is he hoping I'll kill you and go back?! I'm not going back to Azkaban. I'm not. I'm NOT. GET OUT," he screamed when she just stood there and gawked at him with silent tears running down her cheeks. "DON'T F-FUCKIN EVER EVEN LOOK AT ME AGAIN."
Daphne sent Ron one last pleading look, then sniffled and turned on her heel and ran from the room when Ron refused to acknowledge her.
Harry watched her flee while bees buzzed around beneath his skin.
"What the fuck?" he breathed.
"This is horrible," Trent grimaced as Draco pat Ron on the shoulder consolingly and Harry stared at the empty corridor.
"It really is. I can't believe she'd be such a filthy snake," Susan spat angrily. She grabbed Harry's elbow and turned him around, kicking the door shut, and guided him to a spot on the floor to sit.
"I can't believe we're going to have to replace her," Trent groaned. Harry's head snapped over to him incredulously and saw that Trent had his hands buried in his hair in real distress.
"Our next match is in a month! And Harry already hasn't flown in over a month!" Trent said, silencing all the other side conversations as everyone looked at him now. "We're going to have to find a replacement! And train a new chaser and get Harry's hands to quit shaking long enough to catch the snitch!" He looked up and there was real agony in his young and naive eyes. "We'll never beat Hufflepuff now."
Harry blinked. Then he slowly reached for his cigarettes and lighter and lit one up right in the middle of the room. Hermione curled her nose in disgust and moved over by the charmed windows, opening one and allowing a magical breeze to blow through the room. Ron just sat beside Harry and silently held his hand out. Harry handed him his pack and lighter as he inhaled and exhaled slowly.
"What the fuck did you just say?" Harry asked Trent as soon as he was sure his voice wouldn't shake.
Trent looked around at everyone's grim faces and stony silences and shrugged. "What? Quidditch is important."
Ron blew out a mouthful of smoke. "Trent, mate, pick Sapphire, alright? You two are a match made in Quidditch fanatic heaven."
After dinner, everyone cleared away the furniture so they could all sleep on the floor in 'true sleepover fashion'.
"No," Harry said bluntly as he eyed the stone floors made minimally more cushioned by the blankets they laid down. He looked up at Neville, who was closest to him, and raised his brows. "Am I still in Azkaban?"
"No, you're at Hogwarts."
"Then I'm not sleeping on the floor."
So then Hermione and Susan had the idea to simply move all the mattresses off the beds and use them as makeshift beds.
"We should have thought of this years ago," Blaise grinned as he stretched out beside Harry. "Much better than the grimy floors."
"It really is," Trent agreed, sounding quite sleepy.
"Just- just checking here..." Harry cleared his throat as he looked up at the ceiling of the dorm. "So far, in one day, since I arrived here this morning— Finnigan told everyone about my boggart, I hit him, Neville hit him too, McGonagall offered to teach me to b-become an animagus, the Slytherin's think I'm a hero for going to p-prison, and Daphne Greengrass admitted to sp-spying on me for Dumbledore."
"Yup," Theo said, sounding as exhausted as Harry was.
"And..." Harry turned his head a little, giving his brother an exasperated look. "And this is supposed to be real? You expect me to believe this isn't a d-dream and I'm not g-gonna wake up in my cell?"
"The fact it's so outrageous really adds credence to its accuracy," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Think about it, Harry, when has your life ever been normal? If today had been 'normal' then wouldn't that actually be more suspicious?"
That...
Yeah.
That made sense.
"Go to sleep, Ghost," Blaise snorted. "Aht." He snatched Harry's hand before he could try and muster up the energy to silence the part of the floor he had claimed for himself. "We're your friends, Harry. Don't put up silencing charms where we can't help you if you need it."
Harry blinked at him incredulously. "Blaise, I'm going to fuckin scream. Snape won't l-let me have a potion to sleep until he b-brews a new batch of mine." Since Harry used up all of the 'non-addictive' dreamless sleep vials Snape made just for him and he hadn't had any chance to brew recently since babysitting Harry was apparently a full-time job. "I'm not waking you guys up b-because I'm weak, it's embarassing," he scowled.
"More embarrassing than your hair?" Draco grinned teasingly.
Harry wasn't in the mood to be teased though. "Yes."
"Don't hide from us," Luna said softly. "If you scream, we'll wake you up and remind you that those were dreams and this is real."
"And you're not weak," Susan said firmly.
Harry would have continued to press the issue, but truthfully he was exhausted. He didn't know if he had the energy to put up enough privacy shields or that they'd be able to withstand the joint efforts of Hermione's brains and Susan's strength to tear them right back down anyway.
"You're g-gonna regret it," Harry shrugged, faking nonchalance. "I don't wanna hear a word about it in the morning."
"Not a word," Neville agreed solemnly. "Goodnight, Harry."
Harry passed out in exhaustion before he remembered that he had wanted to talk about what 'Little Horcrux' meant with Theo.
And, just as Harry had warned them, he tossed and turned all night, screaming. He was unaware of his penchant for talking in his sleep though.
It had been a long night in the sixth year boys' dorm.
And Luna went straight to Snape's office the next morning to get the recipe for Harry's particular dreamless sleep.