Harry Potter and the House Divided

Chapter Twenty-One Hermione comes of Age

With the exception of their classes and the D.A. meeting, Harry and Ron didn't spend much time together after their fight at the end of the first week of school. Saturday morning's Quidditch try-outs forced them to try to set their differences aside as each wanted Gryffindor to win the Quidditch cup again. Although it had only been a few days, spending time with his best mate talking about the team and the things that they needed to do to get ready for try-outs felt good to Harry. On reflection, he had to admit that Professor Dumbledore was right about the importance of being around his friends and doing fun things whenever he could. He wondered if the determination to have fun was an explanation for the Headmaster's reputation for being slightly mad. After all, if you couldn't have fun with life then it wasn't worth living.

When he awoke at 6am on Saturday morning, Harry thought that having to go to early morning Quidditch Tryouts had very little to do with living. Ron, on the other hand, was up and ready to get to the pitch.

"Oh, stop complaining," Ron barked, waving the half-full jug of water on Harry's bedside table threateningly. "This is Quidditch and no matter what else is happening it's important to be ready to beat Slytherin."

"But Ron," Harry groaned, searching for his robes, "it's 6am on Saturday morning in the middle of September. We don't have to play Slytherin for weeks yet and it won't matter much if we're not out until ten o'clock will it?"

"'Course it will," Ron said. "Since Ravenclaw'll have the pitch by then."

"Great," Harry groaned, picking up his broom. "At least I'll be able to take a nap when we get back," he said, dragging his feet as they descended toward the Common Room.

"That's the spirit," Ron said, jovially, voice and attitude reminding Harry of Oliver Wood at his worst.

Kirke, Sloper, Katie and Ginny met them in the common room itself and the six team members headed for the pitch to meet the students who wanted to try out for the open Chaser position at 6.30.

Harry's displeasure at having to get up so early was multiplied when they got outside. Though it wasn't raining yet, thick clouds dominated the sky. It seemed to Harry that today, at best, would be dark, dreary and dismal. At worst, it would feature a downpour much like that which Harry had flown in during the match that he'd lost to Cedric Diggory at the beginning of his third year.

"You know," said Katie Bell who was walking just behind Harry, "if it weren't for the fact that this is my last year and I really want to go out winning the cup again, I think I might just turn around and leave you to that madman."

"Yeah," Ginny groaned as the first drops of rain hit their faces, "it's going to be a really good year for Quidditch."

Harry, who privately thought that Ginny and Katie might have a point, tried to find the energy to defend Ron. He might have been able to if the drizzle hadn't turned into rain heavy enough to keep them from seeing the Castle from the Quidditch pitch. As it was, any fire that he might have found on behalf of his friend was doused by the flood that seemed destined to drown them without benefit of a fall into the lake.

*-*-*-

Tryouts went better than Harry thought they would when it became clear that there would be only three candidates for the open position on the Gryffindor Chaser line. Two of the candidates soon demonstrated that they were rubbish where the position of Chaser was concerned. Because he was so small, Dennis Creevey was blown off course and couldn't handle the Quaffle when he did catch it. A fourth year named Robert Dunston was big enough to handle the position in all weathers but he was as uncoordinated in the air as Tonks was on the ground.

Fortunately, Marigold Mason, one of Ginny's roommates, was trying out as well. She was nearly six feet tall, a natural flier, had incredible reflexes and was the third person Harry knew to own a Firebolt. She was also utterly fearless, ferociously determined to win and Ginny's least favourite roommate.

"What's the matter with her?" Ron asked when they returned to Gryffindor tower. "After all, she's big, fast, a natural flier and as good with the Quaffle as Katie is."

"Yeah," Ginny said sarcastically, "and she'll be sure to let everyone in the tower know about it before the day's out too."

"Well," Ron said, "if she causes too much trouble I'll talk to her, but for now you'll have to deal with it, since she's good enough to make it a nearly sure thing that we'll win the Cup."

"And what about the rest of us?" Ginny demanded, angrily.

"Well," Ron said, "Harry's the best Seeker we've ever had of course and you're a great flier too. Katie's probably going to be able to play professional Quidditch if she wants and Kirke and Sloper tell me that they've worked on their game. It looked to me as if they were a bit better, but you can't tell until game-time. But with Mason on her Firebolt, I just don't see how you Chasers won't flatten everyone else on the pitch."

Ginny seemed only partly placated by Ron's comments and Harry noticed that she kept shooting nasty glances at the athletic blonde who fulfilled her predictions by strolling into the common room like a conquering heroine.

*-*-*-

Although Potions was never a good way to start off a week, the work that Harry was doing with Daphne and Hermione continued to pay off. Much as he wanted to, Professor Snape couldn't criticize Harry's work, and Harry thought that he was learning more than he ever had in the class now that he wasn't continually defending himself.

Professor Veridian began working with everyone on the Shield Charm that Harry had used at the Ministry of Magic. The lesson held little interest for Harry as Tonks had been working with him on the Reflectus charm. This advanced shield required far greater power to cast as it sent most spells back to the witch or wizard using them. Having nothing better to do, Harry decided to help his classmates to learn the regular Shield Charm.

"Playing the hero again, Potter?" Malfoy muttered when Harry was standing near him, showing Lisa Turpin the proper wand movements.

"Nope," Harry said coolly. "Just teaching someone else how to do it so they can send gits like your father back to Azkaban as well."

"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter," Malfoy snarled under his breath. "You never know when something bad might happen."

"True enough," Harry agreed, while moving on to help Lavender. "But considering how thick you are, I don't think that I have much to worry about."

*-*-*-

The first full-dress meeting of the Defence Association saw four students, one from Hufflepuff and three from Ravenclaw drop out. However, Fleur came to this meeting, Daphne had two more of the fourth year Slytherins and Marigold Mason also asked for admission.

After Hermione had registered their wands and deregistered the students who dropped out, Harry told everyone to go back into the corridor outside of the Room of Requirement for a few minutes.

When he let them return, the room had taken on the dimensions and lay-out of the Great Hall.

"Today's plan is for you to use Expelliarmus and stunners to either attack or defend the hall. The attacking students can position themselves wherever they want to and can use other offensive spells against anything except another person. The defenders have to be at their house tables. Since the attackers will have the advantage of deciding where they're going to come from and seeing where the defenders are sitting, there'll be only ten attackers. The others, except Fleur and I, will be at the house tables."

"Where are you going to be?" asked Hannah Abbott.

"At the staff table. We'll be judging and able to help if someone gets into real trouble. Also, since there'll be teachers at the staff table if anyone ever manages a surprise attack, the attackers need to try to get our wands from us. We'll be able to use shields but no offensive spells beyond what you're using."

Nods greeted Harry's pronouncement.

"I'll award points to the side that wins, the attacker who stuns the most people or takes the most wands and to either the last defender or all of the defenders who survive the attack."

"Can we use shield charms?" asked Daphne.

"Only the attackers," Harry said.

"Why no shields for the defenders?" asked Hermione.

"Because the fourth and fifth years haven't learned shields yet and most people in the Great Hall at meals wouldn't know them anyway."

"But you'll get us to practice using them if we're not an attacker?" she asked, nervously.

"Sure," Harry said. "And you'll get it in Defence, so you should be ready the next time we do something dangerous."

Harry told the seventh years to stay in the Great Hall and made Ron pick nine other sixth year students to be his attackers.

Ron picked Hermione, Neville, Ernie, Hannah, Justin, Anthony, the Patil twins and, after some uncertainty, Daphne.

After a few minutes' discussion, the attackers withdrew from the hall. Harry decided to see what they would do and was impressed by their ability to work together.

Knowing Ron's ability with chess, Hermione suggested that he should make a plan of attack. Though Daphne seemed doubtful for a moment, she was willing to let Ron set the strategy when Neville and Pavarti vociferously supported Hermione's suggestion.

After seeing that the attackers were moving forward nicely, Harry re-entered the mock Great Hall and saw that the defenders were sitting in small, uncomfortable groups at their house tables.

"Just a thought," he said wryly, "but I'm pretty sure that if you don't get together to make plans amongst all of you that the attackers will have an easy time with you."

Nervous laughter met his words but after some moments' confusion, all four houses were working to make a defence.

*-*-*-

Harry spent a few minutes watching as the students settled down, eating the snacks and other things that the Room of Requirement created for them. As time passed, his vigilance also faded and he was soon describing the plans for Hermione's coming of age party to Fleur.

"It should be great," he said, grinning. "Seamus and Dean have been planning this for a long time. After all, she's the first of us to come of age."

"But why deedn't 'U or Ron mek ze plans?" Fleur asked, curious.

"If we'd tried to do anything this big she would've caught us out about three minutes after we got started."

"Truly," Fleur said, gracing Harry with the full-blown smile that she'd shown him only a few times over the preceding months. "She ees too smart by half for 'U and 'U are too transparent by more zen zat."

Shouts, screams and flashes of spells all over the hall kept Harry from offering any sort of objection to Fleur's comment. It would be longer than that before he could accept just how true her words were, much as he wished otherwise at times.

Harry was on his feet, a Shield charm on the tip of his tongue when a shimmering form rose behind Fleur, ready to take her out of the game before she could cast a single spell.

"Expelliarmus!" he cried, watching as the spell flew past Fleur, striking the disillusioned attacker before he, or she, could attack.

An unfamiliar wand flew into the air and Harry caught it just as he felt his own wand leap from his hands. Fortunately, whoever's wand he'd captured was sufficiently compatible with him to allow him to summon his wand before it could complete its flight.

He spun on one foot, threw himself toward the front wall of the hall and saw a short, slender form ripple into being only feet from where he stood.

"Hermione," he sighed, far from surprised to see one of his best friends trying to take him out of the game.

"Harry," she said before trying to stun him.

Ready for her attack, Harry raised a shield and began to batter her with a mix of stunners and disarming charms as fast as he could cast them. Had he allowed her to use all of the spells that she knew, Harry thought that the battle might have come out differently but as it was, his best friend quickly tired under his assault. Moments later, her shield flickered and a Disarming charm pulled her wand from her hand.

"I'm sorry," he said, heart clenching at the frustrated look on her face.

"Don't be," she said, glaring. "It's not your fault that you got lucky, and one of the things that we have to learn here is that luck and skill go hand in hand. You got lucky today, nothing more."

"Right," Harry said, knowing that she wasn't telling him what she was feeling and equally sure that he didn't want to talk to her about it. Maybe Fleur could help he thought, before realizing that he'd not checked on the rest of the battle.

When he turned around he saw that the attackers had defeated the group sitting at the Slytherin table and were using it as a fortification. By doing so they'd beaten down all resistance on one side of the Ravenclaw table and were trying to get past it to the gap between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables. They had stunned a few of the older students at the Gryffindor table as well and Harry realized that Ron was hoping to take down his most experienced enemies so that he could move from one table to the next more easily.

Unfortunately for Ron's team, there were too many students at the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables who could attack anyone who might try to get past the Ravenclaw table. Harry watched the attackers levitate the table and then drop it onto its side, pinning a number of students who had been knocked off their benches when their legs were destroyed by a flurry of Reductor curses. The fallen students could neither move nor use their wands effectively and were soon stunned by Ron, who walked down the gap between the Ravenclaw and Slytherin tables, protected from curses as he took six defenders out of the game.

Sheer luck meant that only a couple of students on the Hufflepuff side of the Ravenclaw table got away to join the group sitting with Hufflepuff House. The attackers also took casualties and didn't have enough people left to get past the middle of the hall.

It soon became clear that Ron's team would lose, if Harry and Fleur stepped in because the attackers wouldn't be able to defend themselves from the teachers' table and the students sill fighting from the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables.

Rather than letting someone get hurt unnecessarily, Harry decided to bring the battle to a premature close. His voice rang through the hall, amplified by a Sonorous charm.

"That's enough, mates!"

It took a few minutes for calm to descend on the room but when it did, he continued.

"Let's get everyone sorted and then we can talk about what happened here."

The tables disappeared and those students who were still conscious revived those who had been stunned. Fortunately, the room hadn't allowed students to be seriously hurt when they fell or were knocked out, so no-one needed to be taken to Madam Pomfrey.

"OK," he said after everyone was standing near him. "What went well and what didn't?"

"Well," Ron said thoughtfully, "we started off well because we came in disillusioned and nobody was paying much attention to what was going on. That gave us time to stun everyone at the Slytherin table before anyone knew what was happening."

"Yeah," Dean grumbled. "You let us get distracted by the snacks and talking to each other before you came in. We didn't think about watching for people who might be disillusioned and no one was paying attention to the door into the meeting room."

"Yeah," Ron said, grinning. "I hoped you'd forget about that since we almost never use that place."

"You got us good," Katie grumbled.

"Right," Harry said, glad that he wouldn't have to admit that he hadn't thought about the meeting room entrance either.

"What about the attackers?"

"They came in through the meeting room door only. So once we knew that they were coming in that way we only had to defend on one front," Cho said softly.

"Actually, we did come in through both sets of doors but Harry managed to stop Michael and me before we could take the high ground behind the staff table." Hermione said, embarrassedly.

"You almost got both of us," Harry said, supportively. "I barely saw Michael in time to save Fleur. And, well, you were right after we duelled. I almost didn't have enough time to summon my wand back from you after you'd disarmed me. I think that you'd have got at least one of us if you'd had a third person up there."

"Yeah, I can see that," Ron said thoughtfully.

"I wanted you to do this for a couple of reasons," Harry said. "I read up on this kind of stuff over the summer and as long as Dumbledore's here I'm pretty sure that you won't have to defend Hogwarts, but you might have to defend your homes. Knowing where all of the places that they might get you from and how to use what you've got to help you is really important. We did a bit of that while we were bashing around in the Ministry and it slowed down Malfoy's dad and his friends for a bit. If I knew then what I do now I think we might have held out, well, long enough to keep everyone from getting hurt so much."

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "'Course we didn't know what it was like in there before we went but if we'd made some plans before we went in, things wouldn't have gone as pear-shaped as they did."

"Ron's right," Hermione said quietly. "We thought that we had to go in really fast but because we were in a hurry, we didn't talk about what we should do if we were attacked.

"We also didn't have anyone to think about using what we found down there to help ourselves. As it was, we got in more trouble because we hadn't practiced real fighting and weren't ready for the fact that someone can still curse you even if they can't talk. We also had trouble because some of the Death Eaters knew to disable us rather than killing us. By disabling us they made us spend extra energy helping those who had been hurt, which took two people out of the fight for every one that was injured. They won't care about their injured but we will, and we'll have to plan for fighting with that disadvantage."

"Yes," said Luna mistily, "being honourable can be a disadvantage at times."

"Better honourable than a Death Eater," Ron said, angrily.

"It is always better to be true to yourself," said Luna.

"Luna's right," Ginny said softly. "The Death Eaters won't care about their injured unless they can fix them up fast."

"Maybe so," said one of the Hufflepuffs, "but I'm not going to leave my friends if they're hurt in a battle."

"Just so," Daphne said softly. "But be prepared for times when you may have to, if you hope to do whatever it was that your friend was trying to do when they got hurt."

"Whatever it was would have to be pretty big for me to leave someone behind," Justin said strongly.

"And if you could kill 'You-Know-Who' or maybe save someone else who was sure to die if you didn't leave your friend?" Daphne asked, eyes as cold and grey as the lake during a mid-winter storm.

"Oh," Justin said, face falling.

"Oh my," Hermione gasped, eyes on her watch. "It's ten minutes to curfew."

This announcement replaced the tension between Daphne and some of the other sixth years with a mad scramble for the door. Though the D.A. might be legitimate this year, no-one wanted to be caught in the corridors after curfew.

*-*-*-

Harry thought that Wednesday would never end. Though the planning for Hermione's party was well under way, some things had to wait until the last minute and it had become clear that he would have to take care of many of them.

Not least of these was a request to the house-elves for a cake and some butterbeer for the party. If Gryffindor hadn't had practice on Wednesday evening, Harry was sure that Hermione would have caught him sneaking off to the kitchens.

Fortunately, practice meant that the team would eat late. After watching the Chasers work on the moves that they were performing with increasing confidence, Harry was able to slip away to the kitchen for a few minutes before going to the Great Hall for a late meal.

Dobby was "Very happy to help Harry Potter in any way that Dobby can," and promised to set up a large cake and a wide variety of other snacks for the following evening.

That detail sorted, Harry raced to the Great Hall where he wolfed down the last of the main courses before hurrying off to Gryffindor tower to study, just as he would have on any other Wednesday evening.

*-*-*-

The next morning dawned grey with light rain. Though thoroughly depressing, the weather was far from severe enough to prevent owls from flying to Hogwarts. Harry didn't need particularly good observational skills to see that an unusually large number of owls was bringing a lot of mail this morning.

He also didn't need long to discover the reason for the morning's unusually high volume of mail.

"I'm surprised he hung on as long as he did," Hermione said after opening her copy of the Daily Prophet.

"What?" Ron asked, forking a sausage from a near-by dish.

"Look for yourselves," Hermione said, flipping the paper so that Harry and Ron could read the banner headline.

Fudge Founders!!!

It read; with the subhead:

Minister of Magic Resigns

"Wow," Ron said after reading the article. "Looks like Dumbledore wasn't able to keep things quiet enough."

"That's certain," Hermione replied, eyes flicking toward Harry. "Between what happened the Ministry and Azkaban, he didn't have much of a chance, did he."

"Yeah," Ron said, grinning at Harry, "and what you said probably didn't help things much either."

"Probably not," Harry grumbled, "though like I've said, I didn't think that anyone other than Fleur heard me."

"Well," Hermione said, piously, "we know that you were heard. In fact, I'm surprised that you haven't been getting loads of mail from people after the articles that came out in June."

"Dobby's been keeping track of it."

"Really?" Hermione asked, interestedly.

"Yeah," Harry laughed. "There's been loads of stuff. Money, marriage proposals, advice and some cursed stuff too."

"So that's why Dumbledore's had him watching your post for you?"

"Well," Harry said, cheeks flushing. "That and the... erm, other offers that I've been getting from a lot of witches."

"What offers?" Ron asked, wickedly.

"Don't you answer that, Harry!" Hermione said, eyes flashing.

"Why not?" Ron asked, leering.

"Because it's inappropriate to talk about such things at the table," Hermione said as if it were obvious. "And besides, there might be people listening that could use that kind of information to hurt Harry."

"How could getting shagged hurt Harry?" Ron asked, amazed.

"That wouldn't be the problem," Hermione said, disgustedly. "It's the news that he's getting such offers that could be a problem."

"Right," Ron said, unconvinced.

At that moment, Katie Bell, who was sitting further down the table with one of her dorm mates got up, hastened down the table and tapped Harry on the shoulder.

"What's up?" he asked, thankful for the interruption.

"Harry," she said, shoving a copy of the 'Daily Prophet' into his hands, "have you seen the article on page three?"

"No," he said, stomach sinking at least an inch. "What's in there?"

"Better read it for yourself," Katie said, softly.

The seemingly innocuous article was headlined:

Wizarding Council Called

The Wizarding Council has been called in order to elect a new Minister of Magic. In following procedure for calling this august body, which only meets when a Minister is unable to complete his term, Albus Dumbledore, who is chief Warlock of the Wizengamot has directed that all families with a living representative tied by blood to those who were signatories to the Wizarding Codicils of the Magna Carta, must send representatives to the session. This means that 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' will have to attend for the Potter family, which has no other living representative.

Adding interest to the forthcoming session is the fact that there will be a number of students from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who will attend because their parents are now in Ministry custody after being captured as part of the daring battle fought between Mr. Potter, several friends from Gryffindor House at Hogwarts and some of 'You-Know-Who's' most powerful supporters last June. Mr Potter was not available for comment at press time and his representative indicated that he would not give a statement on this unusual situation.

Mr Potter's reticence is understandable given the shameful treatment that he has received at the hands of the wizarding media and so can be excused in this case. After all, he has done more to thwart 'You-Know-Who's' agenda than any other wizard with the possible exception of Albus Dumbledore. The least that the wizarding world can do is to give Mister Potter the time that he needs to focus on his studies and his valiant struggle against the darkness.

After reading this, Harry threw the paper aside in disgust, not sure whether to be angrier at the Daily Prophet for painting him as some kind of tragic hero or Professor Dumbledore for not giving him an opportunity to decide whether he should be interviewed. He would have been even angrier if it hadn't been for the fact that he knew that he wasn't ready to talk with Rita Skeeter or whatever other wanker the Prophet might have sent to interview him.

Still, he couldn't resist glaring up at the staff table which he suddenly realized was nearly empty. Only Professors Sinistra and Vector were there, with Fleur sitting at the end of the table opposite to that at which Professor Snape usually sat. All three were paying more attention to the students in the Great Hall than they were to their toast and tomatoes.

"I wonder where Dumbledore and the rest are," said Hermione.

"No guess," Harry said, suspecting that the teachers, who were also members of the order, were probably having some kind of meeting about what to do now that the government was in total disarray.

"Probably meeting about Fudge," Ron said, glancing around as if afraid that someone might hear him.

"Probably," Hermione said, "but if so, why's Fleur here?"

"Dunno," Ron said thoughtfully "but better to look at her than Snape,"

"Is looking at beautiful girls the only thing on your mind?" Hermione demanded, voice cold with anger.

"Not the only thing," Ron said grinning. "Just the thing that's on it now that I've had some breakfast."

"I'll meet you at Transfiguration, Harry," Hermione said, slinging her bag over her shoulder and storming off in obvious disgust.

"Nice job, mate," Harry said, amazed at just how thick Ron could be sometimes.

"But all I did was answer her question," Ron defended, ears reddening.

"Yeah," said Katie who had seen the whole thing. "But you didn't give her the answer that she wanted."

"Well," Ron said, "if she had an answer in mind she should've said so."

"That's not how girls do things," Ginny said from her seat next to Dean. "When you figure that out you'll be a lot closer to the place that you've been trying to get for two years at least."

"Shut up, Ginny," Ron said, face flushing dangerously.

"I've already had my say," Ginny said with an angelic smile before jumping to her feet, "and it's time for me to get to Herbology."

"And we'd better get to Transfiguration," Dean said, while giving Ron a look that Harry saw was filled with pity.

"Right," Harry said, sad that Hermione's birthday was starting off so badly.

*-*-*-

Fortunately, Ron and Hermione seemed to resolve whatever differences they had by the evening meal. Harry was glad that they had, as he had too much else on his mind to deal with an extended fit of bickering, particularly on Hermione's coming-of-age.

Most of Harry's day had been spent thinking about whether he should talk to Professor Dumbledore about the Wizarding Council and the Headmaster's preventing him from having the chance to decide about doing the interview the next day. Though they were scheduled to work together for three hours on Friday mornings, they had already established a pattern that included at least half an hour's discussions about things that Harry should know about. He understood that he was still not learning many of the things that the Order knew but felt that he was being kept up on the things that were important for him to know, and this was enough to satisfy him.

Fortunately, Harry hadn't had any visions and his dreams were random enough to assure Professor Dumbledore that either his Occlumency training was working or Voldemort wasn't trying to affect his mind in any significant way. Still, there had been a lot to think about in this morning's news and Harry was glad that Professor McGonagall was giving a lecture in Transfiguration as he was sure that he would've made a mess of things if he'd been asked to do any of the simple conjuring spells that they were supposed to know.

The afternoon was a near disaster as Professor Flitwick was going over simple House Management Charms. Harry was too distracted to focus on them and nearly amputated his finger when he tried to charm a knife to slice an apple. Fortunately, Professor Flitwick didn't notice and he was able to complete the assignment with no loss of points to Gryffindor and no report on his lack of focus to any of the adults with whom he'd worked this summer.

The surprise nearly fell apart at dinner as Hermione nearly caught Dean and Seamus doing some last minute planning for her party. Fortunately, Harry was able to divert her attention with a question about the morning's lecture in Transfiguration. Seamus gave him a thankful wave as Hermione's dorm mates, and then Neville, Seamus and Dean left the table at five minute intervals in order to get back to the common room without arousing Hermione's interest.

Finally, everything seemed ready and Harry decided that it would be best to take Hermione up to Gryffindor tower.

"Could we go over the rest of the lecture?" he asked, hoping that she didn't have any plans to slip away to the library that couldn't be set aside for a while.

"I'd be glad to," Hermione said, throwing her bag over her shoulder. "And while we're doing that you can tell me why you weren't paying attention to what you were doing today."

"Too mad at Dumbledore to concentrate on lecture this morning," Harry muttered, embarassed. "And just a bit out of sorts this afternoon I suppose."

"I'm sure that he was only trying to protect you from getting even more attention," Hermione said.

"Probably," Harry said, "but that doesn't give him the right to keep me from knowing what's going on in my life."

"Come on, Harry," Ron said bracingly from a couple of steps behind him. "Let it go and talk with him about it tomorrow."

"Pretty much what I've decided to do," Harry said with a grin for his best mate.

"Well, great wizards have great thoughts and all that," Ron said, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Then don't stress yourself trying to do something that you'll never manage, Weasley," drawled Draco Malfoy as he stepped into their path, flanked by Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy Parkinson and a large group of Slytherins who ranged from fifth to seventh year.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Hermione asked with a sigh.

"Oh, nothing, mudblood," Malfoy said viciously. "After all, it wouldn't be worth wishing someone like you a happy birthday, since it'll be your last and all."

Hermione was barely able to grab Ron before he charged into the far larger group of students, many of whom were at least as big as he was. Harry, who was reaching for his wand at the same time, suddenly realized that he had a better way to make Malfoy's life difficult now that he was an Assistant Teacher.

"That'll be fifty points from Slytherin for derogatory comments to a fellow student and a week's detentions with Filch for intimidation."

"You can't do that, Potter," Malfoy said dangerously.

"Try me," Harry said, reaching for his wand.

"Is there a problem here, Potter?" demanded Professor McGonagall, who seemed to appear by magic from behind the Slytherins.

"Ask Malfoy," Harry said, glad that he wouldn't have to fight nearly a dozen students with only two people at his side.

"Mr. Malfoy?" the professor barked, eyeing him beadily.

"No, Professor," Malfoy said, eyes cold with hatred.

"Then I'd suggest that you be off to your Common Room for the evening," she said, dismissively.

Before Malfoy and his gang could slip away, she spun on her heel and barked:

"Oh, and Mr Malfoy? Mr. Filch will schedule your detentions with you tomorrow morning."

*-*-*-

Much as meeting Malfoy had made him angry, Harry knew that Hermione's party would do a lot to help him forget the stupid git's comments.

The corridor outside of the Fat Lady's portrait was unusually quiet when Harry, Ron and Hermione finally got there.

"Coming of age," Harry said to the Fat Lady who smiled at Hermione and congratulated her on "surviving the two most dangerous Gryffindors ever to pass through this school," before swinging open.

As the thunderous cheers of the house swept over her, Hermione turned to Harry and Ron, eyes swimming with tears.

"Thank you," she cried, crushing first Ron and then Harry in hugs and giving both kisses on the cheek. Ron, as so often happened, flushed at the effects of being so close to Hermione and Harry found himself equally discomfited by the scene that she was making. With no Dumbledore to deflect the attention of everyone else from her hugs, tears and squeal of joy, he found the whole thing quite embarrassing.

"I'm glad we could do it for you," he said, trying to pry her off him.

"Me too," Ron said, seemingly as distracted by Hermione's attentions as he'd been by Fleur at the beginning of their fourth year.

After the rest of the house had hugged, cheered or otherwise congratulated Hermione on her coming of age, she settled down to her presents.

"Oh, Harry!" she cried, giving him another hug. "Never-fill notebooks for all of my classes. These will make things so much easier."

"With all that you carry around with you, it seemed like a good idea."

"Oh it was," Hermione said, happily.

Hermione's response to Ron's gift made it obvious that he'd found a way to avoid another perfume debacle.

After giving him a crushing hug and another kiss on the cheek, she began flipping through a bound copy of Percy's Transfiguration guide.

"Oh Ron!" she cried, joyfully. "Having all of the sixth year notes from people like Bill and Percy who've already taken these classes will be so interesting. It'll be fascinating to see what the differences are between the way they learned the material and the presentation we get."

"That's what I thought," Ron said, winking at Ginny.

"Can I have a look at those once you're done with them?" Ginny asked, grinning.

"Of course," Hermione said, happily. "You know that I'm always happy to help you with anything, and after all, these are your brothers' notes."

"Great," Ginny said in a way that made Harry wonder if she'd done so just to make Hermione happy.

"So," Seamus said, walking toward them from somewhere near the punch bowl, "What all did ya get."

"Notes and study guides from Ron, Never-fill notebooks from Harry and a wonderful broom compass from Ginny."

"But I thought you hated flying," Dean said from where he stood beside Seamus.

"Harry and Ginny have been working with me on it and after the Thestrals last year I'm not nearly as nervous as I used to be."

"Excellent," Seamus said, face a little rosier than normal. "Any of you want some punch?"

"Sure!" they chorused, Ron jumping up to bring drinks back for everyone.

*-*-*-

Harry couldn't remember having had a better time at a party. Somehow, much as Fred and George made things livelier, their antics also made it harder to talk to people. He felt surprisingly relaxed, glad that he didn't need to focus on his worries and even happier with the joy that he felt on watching Hermione get some much deserved attention from her housemates.

"Great party, eh Harry?" Ron asked, stumbling over to him.

"Yeah," Harry said, finding it hard to focus his thoughts. "Dean and Seamus are good lads putting all this together."

"True enough" Ron said, "and the punch's pretty good too."

"Yeah," Harry said, feeling that there was something very bad about the punch but unwilling to think about what it might be.

"I'm off to see Mason," Ron said, staggering toward the Chaser who was holding court near the stairs to the girls' dormitory.

Harry, who knew that there was something bad about that as well but not sure what it might be, rose and tried to walk over to the punch bowl. Getting there wasn't easy as people, chairs and books kept tripping him up but he finally got close enough for Seamus to see him.

"More punch Harry?" the Irishman asked, face nearly glowing.

"Thanks Seamus," Harry said, "and not just for the punch".

"No problems, mate," Seamus said expansively while handing him another cup of the purple liquid.

After getting back to his chair, Harry spent several minutes contemplating the golden sparkles in Pavarti's hair. He was only slightly surprised to realize that thinking about Pavarti's beautiful hair and the history of magic exam during which he'd first noticed it was almost completely painless. This, too, seemed a bit odd but with all the pressure in his life he decided that he needed to stop worrying about everything for a while and enjoy the party. Tomorrow would be soon enough to...

...come crashing in on him on a wave of joy from Lord Voldemort. He scrambled to raise his defences but found his mind far too sluggish and too abused to do so. The last thing he remembered before crashing to the floor was the high-pitched cackle of laughter that came from his lips accompanied by a images of the destruction of a well-appointed home that seemed to contain Muggle pictures of two curly-haired adults and a girl who could only be...

A/N: ON the advice of my wise and powerful beta I leave you to your curiosity.