Harry Potter and the Guild of the Night

Chapter 6

Three days later, Harry was standing in the Entrance Hall beside Remus, fidgeting slightly. The last three days had not been easy. It had been especially difficult to go back down to the dungeons for his Occlumency lessons. He had been afraid that Snape would use his breakdown to torment him but apart from a perfunctory 'You're welcome' when Harry had thanked him, the subject had not been discussed. He had also had trouble getting around with Master Nhean for the first two days; almost as though he was afraid. That had continued only until Remus had come across them on the second day and had scolded him into going back to the basics of picturing the route to where he wanted to go.

Now he was waiting for the arrival of the Weasleys, Hermione, Neville and Luna. They were coming on the Knight Bus to Hogsmeade and then walking up and were due at any minute. When he heard the sound of talking outside, he nearly bolted. It was only Remus' firm hand on his shoulder that stopped him.

"It'll be alright," Remus soothed and Harry calmed a little. He and Remus had spent a lot of time during the last three days talking and Harry felt closer to the werewolf than he had to anyone else, including Sirius. He had been startled when he first realised that but then it occurred to him that it made sense. He and Sirius had never really had the opportunity to get to know each other. Harry felt a pang of regret at this.

All thoughts flew out of his mind however when he heard the main doors bang open and the sound of excited talking.

"Harry!" he heard Hermione yell and he was suddenly being hugged very tightly, his face full of bushy hair.

"Mione! Ease up on the bloke, you'll break his ribs," he heard Ron say and Hermione reluctantly let him go. Then he was being whacked firmly on the shoulder. "How are you, mate?"

Much to Ron and Hermione's surprise, he broke into a wide grin. "I'm okay," he said.

He didn't get chance to say anything else. He was engulfed in a hug and he heard Mrs Weasley say, "Oh, Harry dear, are you alright?"

"Oy, leave off Mum," he heard one of the twins say. "Let him breathe."

Molly Weasley pulled away and kissed him on the forehead and then he was engulfed by the twins. They slapped him on the back and ducked for cover when their mother started scolding them. She pulled something off the back of his jumper and Harry grinned again. Fred and George would never change.

Before he had a chance to react any further, he heard a "Hello, Harry, you're looking well" from Luna Lovegood and a "Hi, Harry!" from Neville. He returned their greetings.

Harry frowned when he realised that Ginny hadn't said hello and that he couldn't hear her voice amongst all the noise. He headed over to where he could hear Mrs Weasley's voice coming from.

"Mrs Weasley?" he asked. "Is Ginny here?"

"I'm over here, Harry," he heard Ginny say in a tear-filled voice. He grinned and walked towards her, lightly tapping his cane in front of himself.

"Hey, Gin," he said cheerfully. "I was wondering where you'd got to."

There was silence from Ginny at first and then she threw herself at him and hugged him in what rapidly became a death grip. He hugged her back and said, "Ease up, Gin. My ribs."

Ginny let him go quickly with a sudden apology. He laughed. "No harm done. It's just that they're only recently healed. Gotta give them a rest." He paused when she didn't respond "I'm alright, Ginny, I promise. I'm even getting used to not being able to see and I've got a great new teacher. I think he wants all of us who went to the Ministry to train to together at some point."

Before Ginny could respond, they were interrupted by Remus. "Come on everyone, let's get you all up to the Gryffindor tower. Yes, even you Luna, no point opening two towers up." He stopped next to Harry to allow him to take his arm and they made their noisy way up to the tower.

The Gryffindors immediately headed up to their respective dormitories to put away their things with Hermione inviting both Luna and Ginny to stay in her dormitory. Mrs Weasley bustled through the door to the girl's dormitories after them, saying that she would take a bed in the lowest room. Remus settled Harry into a chair and the two of them burst out laughing.

"It's like being engulfed by the tide, isn't it?" Remus said.

"I know," Harry replied, grinning. "Fun, though."

Remus patted his shoulder, still laughing, and said, "Molly and I are going to head up to Dumbledore's office as soon as she gets back. We've got some Order stuff to go through as well as organising your guardianship papers. We'll leave you kids to it."

Harry grinned. "You just can't keep up," he teased.

"Definitely not!" Remus exclaimed and went over to intercept Molly when she came back out. The two of them disappeared through the entrance hole and Harry leaned back into the chair and waited for the others to come back down. He'd been gradually feeling better about things over the last few days, although he still had his really down moments, but the whirlwind arrival of the Weasleys and the others had definitely put him in a cheerful mood. They were obviously worried about him but were also determinedly treating him as normally as they could.

"Harry!" he heard Hermione exclaim. "Where has Professor Lupin gone?"

Harry was startled to hear Remus referred to like that but then laughed at himself. "He's gone to Professor Dumbledore's office with Mrs Weasley. They have some Order business to take care of and he thought we could look after ourselves."

He could hear that the other girls were with Hermione and the three of them settled themselves in various chairs near Harry. Just then Ron, Fred, George and Neville came thundering down the stairs from the boy's dorms and they too collapsed into chairs. A thick silence fell as everyone wondered what to say and Harry started laughing.

The others stared at him for a moment until finally Ron said, with mock concern, "Well, it's official, Harry's flipped his lid."

This made Harry laugh even harder and the others joined in. When they finally got themselves back under control, the mood was much more relaxed.

"Are you really alright?" Hermione asked hesitantly, clearly remembering Harry's reaction to such questions last summer.

Harry gave a wry half-smile. "Don't worry, Hermione, I'm not going to start yelling again. I've already got all of that out of my system." They all laughed and Harry continued. "I'm mostly alright. You know, some days are good and some days are bad." Harry paused and grinned. "Today's definitely a good day."

There was another long silence. "What...what's it like, you know, being blind?" Neville asked timidly.

"Neville!" Hermione said scandalised but Harry interrupted her before she could say any more.

"It's okay, Hermione," Harry said, "It's kind of weird. I mean, don't get me wrong, I hate it." The others were startled at the vehemence in his voice. "But whether I hate it or not, I've got to get used to it."

Ron frowned. "But isn't there some kind of magical healing?" he asked, "Or couldn't you get magical eyes like Moody's?"

"Yeah, I asked about that," Harry sighed. "They could have healed my eyes magically if they'd got to me within an hour or two of the injuries occurring. Apparently it's one of those types of healing that has a really limited timeframe because of the delicacy of the eye."

"But what about magical eyes?" Ron asked.

"Well, they can't do that either," Harry said in resignation. "If I was blinded only in one eye it would have worked. Apparently you have to have one normal eye. The magical eyes are a bit hard to take what with the amount of information they give you. And the sight through one of those magical eyes isn't exactly what you would call 'normal'. It's really enhanced; remember Moody could see right through my invisibility cloak. I asked if there were just normal magical eyes but apparently in order to get them to work the magic has to pretty strong and that affects what you see." Harry gave a wry laugh. "Reading between the lines of what they told me, only seeing the world through magical eyes would drive you nuts pretty quickly."

"Bugger!" said one of the twins, Harry couldn't figure out which. "So what do you do now?"

"Dumbledore had that one figured out pretty quickly," Harry said and then he started to grin wickedly at where he thought Hermione was sitting. "To echo his question, tell me, have you ever heard of the Guild of the Night?"

The confused silence that followed answered his question and he laughed.

"What is the Guild of the Night?" Hermione asked, her voice full of interest and curiosity. "And what does it have to do with what you are going to do now?"

Harry grinned, he knew Hermione wouldn't have been able to resist asking, and the others started laughing and teasing her. She glared at them and Harry quietened them all by telling them about Master Nhean and his new study program. He also told them that he was doing Occlumency lessons again.

"Are you doing them with Dumbledore this time?" Hermione asked.

"No, with Snape," Harry replied and waited with an inward grin for the reaction.

"That greasy git!" Ron exclaimed, fulfilling Harry's expectations. Fred and George echoed Ron's sentiments but the three of them fell silent when they realised Harry was grinning openly at them.

"What are you grinning at, Harry?" Ron exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air. "You really have gone barmy, haven't you?"

Harry spluttered with laughter and shook his head. "No, I haven't gone barmy, Ron," he said with amusement and then settled down and frowned. "The lessons haven't been that bad this time. We're using a slightly different method and Snape...well, Snape's been different."

"How different?" Ron asked suspiciously. "You don't mean that he's actually being nice, do you? Does he even know how?"

"Ron!" Hermione admonished and everyone laughed.

"Well, it's kind of hard to explain," Harry said thoughtfully. "Snape came with Remus to rescue me and Remus said that Snape acted kind of odd, like he actually cared about me." This was greeted by a variety of disbelieving snorts. "And since then he's been...well, I wouldn't say nice but he has been a lot less nasty than usual."

"You're kidding," burst out Ron, Fred and George. "No way, it's got to be a trick of some kind," continued Ron.

"Ron!" Hermione said with exasperation. "Professor Snape is not some kind of monster!"

"Hermione's right," Harry said firmly, surprising all of the Gryffindors. "Look, I've had a lot of time to think about all of this. Don't you see, Snape had to treat me the way he has. Voldemort thinks that Snape's still a loyal Death Eater and with all the children of Death Eaters here at Hogwarts, if Snape treated me as anything other than his enemy, the word would get back pretty quickly and Voldemort would get pretty suspicious." Harry sighed. "Besides Snape's helped me a lot in the last couple of weeks."

Harry proceeded to tell them of his little breakdown and Snape's role in helping him. He was bombarded with questions about it and finally he said a little testily, "Look, it happened because I was keeping everything all bottled up, okay! I wasn't telling anybody anything and Master Nhean predicted I'd blow up at some point. He said I couldn't bottle up my feelings about Sirius dying and being blinded forever and he had Remus and a few others ready for when I broke. As it turned out Remus was pretty ill, Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were away and that just left Snape." Harry paused and said quietly and earnestly. "He really helped. He knew the right things to say. The whole time since I was rescued he's known when to be silent, when to say something nice...well, nice for him and when to give me a boot up the arse."

The others were quiet for a moment. "You not still keeping things to yourself, are you Harry?" Hermione asked hesitantly.

"No, Remus and I made a deal," Harry said with a small grin. "We agreed not to keep things from each other. And he's going to be my new guardian, along with your parents, Ron."

"Well, it's about they made it official," one of the twins said, laughing. The other continued, "After all Harry, you've been an unofficial ickle brother for ages!"

Everyone roared with laughter and the Weasleys immediately started teasing Harry, coming up with increasing bizarre things he'd be required to do as the newest Weasley. Not surprisingly Fred and George managed to come up with the best ideas.

Eventually they all settled down. "Why is Professor Lupin also your guardian?" Hermione asked.

"Actually it's the other way around," Harry answered. "I wanted Remus to be my guardian but we rather thought that the Ministry wouldn't let that happen so we needed someone else to be joint guardians to make them happy." Harry shrugged. "Who else other than Mr and Mrs Weasley? They've been the closest things to real parents that I've ever had."

"Why wouldn't the Ministry allow Professor Lupin to be your guardian? He seems quite suitable," asked Luna and the others all looked at her strangely.

"Erm, because Remus is a werewolf," Harry said carefully. "I thought the whole school knew that. We found out a couple of years ago; you would have been in second year."

"Oh, that," Luna said airily. "I merely thought it was the usual useless gossip. I was quite disappointed when Professor Lupin left, he was an excellent teacher."

"Yes, we thought so," Hermione said dryly, closely followed by Harry's "You don't mind that he's a werewolf?"

"Oh no," said Luna. "I find it fascinating. Is he really just a werewolf or is he actually a Garou?"

Harry was about to answer when Hermione interrupted. "A Garou? There have been no recorded instances of a lycanthrope also being a Garou. They're myths."

"Not necessarily," Luna responded calmly. "Just because there are no recorded cases does not mean that they do not exist. I would imagine they are quite reviled, more so than a normal lycanthrope, and takes excellent steps in order to hide themselves."

Harry interrupted the two girls before they could get going. "Er, what exactly is a Garou?"

Hermione sighed. "A Garou is a lycanthrope that can transform at will at any time, not just the full moon."

"Oh, well, Remus definitely isn't one of those," Harry said firmly, trying to close the discussion. Hermione helped him by pouncing on the subject she had been quite eager to discuss.

"Harry, you haven't told us what you got for your O.W.L.S." she said, eliciting groans from Ron and Neville. "You have got them, haven't you?"

Harry grinned at her, he had been wondering exactly when she was going to ask. "Yeah, Professor McGonagall gave them to me a couple of nights ago. But tell me what yours were first."

Ron groaned. "Don't get her started," he said and then yelped when Hermione smacked him on the arm. Harry heard parchment being rustled and then an odd silence before Hermione cleared her throat.

"Er, well, I'll just tell you my results then, shall I?" she said a little uncomfortably. "Well, I got O's for everything except Astronomy and I got an E in that. Mind you, I think that it's totally unfair that they didn't make allowances for what happened during that exam." She would have gone on but Ron cleared his throat.

"Erm, I got an O in Defence, of course," Ron said proudly. "I got an E in Care of Magical Creatures, A's in Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, Potions and History of Magic and I got a D in Divination. Mum was pretty pleased especially with my DADA result. Neville?"

Neville jumped. "Oh! Um, I got O's in Defence and Herbology," he said proudly. "I got an E in History of Magic and A's in Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, Divination and Care of Magical Creatures."

"That's great, guys!" Harry said, pleased that they'd all done well.

"Come on, Harry, your turn now," Ron demanded.

"Okay," Harry said. "Well, for what it's worth, I got an O in Defence, E's in Transfiguration, Charms, Potions and Care of Magical Creatures. I got an A in Herbology and, somehow in Divination and I got a D in History of Magic."

"What did you mean by 'for what it's worth'?" Hermione asked. "Those are quite good results."

"Because I won't be doing normal classes this year," he said in surprise. "I mean, how could I?"

Silence fell and Harry shook his head in exasperation. "Didn't you realise that's why Master Nhean is here?" he said. "He's my teacher now."

"What about the DA?" Hermione asked. "Will you still be able to take that?"

"More importantly," Ron said with dismay in his voice, "what about quidditch?"

Harry slumped in his chair, his good mood suddenly vanishing. It had only occurred to him the day before that he wouldn't be able to play quidditch any more and he had spent a couple of hours stomping, and sometimes stumbling, around the suite while he raved on about the unfairness of it all to Remus. His realisation that quidditch was now impossible for him had coincided with Professor McGonagall returning his Firebolt to him after his lessons with Master Nhean were over for the day and informing him that his ban had been lifted. He had been ecstatic for the couple of minutes it had taken for reality to sink in.

"I guess you'll have to stay on as Seeker, Gin," he said miserably. "You were pretty good last year."

The eight teenagers were still sitting with an air of gloom surrounding them when Remus crawled back through the entrance hole. He looked at them in surprise and then narrowed his eyes as he realised that the gloomy mood was particularly strong around the Weasleys and Harry. He sighed as he realised that the discussion must have got around to quidditch. As he stood there, unnoticed, Harry's head came up and swung around.

He frowned. "Remus? Is that you?"

"Yes," Remus replied in surprise, "how did you know?"

Harry broke out into a slow, pleased smile. "I...think I heard you breathing and...yes, I could smell you as well."

The twins immediately questioned Remus with mock concern about his bathing habits, getting a laugh out of everyone in the room.

"No, not that!" Harry said with amused exasperation. "It was just a mix of the aftershave Remus uses and...I don't know...just a distinct Remus smell. It's kind of hard to explain but Master Nhean did say this would happen. He said my other senses would start to compensate for the loss of my sight. He said the more time I spend around someone; the quicker I'll be able to recognise their scent and sound."

"Cool!" Ron said in awe. "What else will you be able to do?"

"Ron! Harry is not some sort of performing beast!" Hermione scolded.

"Mione! I didn't mean it like that!" Ron said defensively. "You knew that didn't you, Harry?"

Harry smothered his laughter and nodded in answer to Ron. Those two had just gotten worse over the summer, now they really sounded like an old, bickering, married couple.

Remus interrupted before Ron and Hermione could settle down into some serious bickering. "Time for dinner everyone." He walked over to where Harry was sitting and pulled Harry upright. He offered his arm and the group made their way out of Gryffindor Tower and down to the Great Hall.