Chapter 5
Harry came to his senses slowly, he heard murmurs around him and his first act was to find his center. It seemed much bigger than it had before, but it glowed very dimly. I must have hit magical exhaustion, he thought, but he still heard murmurs and decided he should listen in before he woke. You can never know, he decided, and besides it had caught him a lot of info in the hospital wing. He stilled his core and made everything appear as though he still slept. Then he tuned in to the conversation around him.
"...still can't get any readings off of him. The kid has a pulse and he is definitely alive but even the most basic diagnostics pull nothing from him. We had a witch come in from the mind healers and she could only barely sense him. This kid has an occlumency barrier like she had never seen," came a voice from his left. Male, Harry decided, probably a healer. Where am I?
"We'll just have to wait for him to wake up. William said he had been doing accidental magic all night from when those people attacked the muggles. I would think he is just magically exhausted and his accidental magic must simply be continuing to protect him," came a voice Harry definitely knew from his right. What in the nine realms was Dumbledore doing here?
He heard noises from all sides that seemed to indicate a group of people settling into chairs, and then steps followed by a tent flap being opened. If no one was talking, he probably didn't have anything else to gain by faking sleep. At least it sounds like Bill took care of him. Maybe the man was a brother and not a friend. Harry guessed he would just have to see.
He opened his eyes and took in the room. He was in the tent, from the light coming in through the open flap, it seemed like mid-morning outside (Hey, our wall is still up outside). Since he was still in the tent, Harry guessed that he had just been moved inside when he blacked out last night. The entire Weasley clan was arrayed around him, some on the bench at the dining table, some on what appeared to be conjured chairs. Hermione was there too, she was sitting next to Ron and they both appeared to be generally angry.
Dumbledore sat to his right in a conjured chair. Harry guessed it was conjured anyway, nowhere else in the world had he ever seen the same kind of strangely colored overstuffed chair that Dumbledore seemed to prefer. The headmaster was looking at him curiously, and Harry felt a finger of magic skitter across the blood red barrier he put around himself. Harry gave it a moment and when the tendril didn't leave him be, he pulsed the shield out around him violently, and Dumbledore nearly fell from his chair.
Harry sighed internally. He was really, really hoping it wasn't Dumbledore trying to influence him. He didn't appreciate the Veela doing it and he damn well didn't like that someone who was supposed to be looking out for him doing it. But it was Dumbledore. Harry decided to let it go, but to act if it ever happened again.
Dumbledore recovered and stared at him even more intently, but Harry felt no disturbance this time. Harry figured it was time to speak up, and he figured he'd go with a classic. The room looked like it could use some humor.
"I don't suppose anyone got the number of that hippogriff that ran me over?"
The Twins gave a chuckle, which was probably all he was going to get, and everyone else looked his way. The Twins and Bill looked pleased to see him, Ron looked unusually hostile (even by his standards), and Hermione, Charlie, Percy and all the rest looked at him with widely varying degrees of concern. Harry bet himself a galleon that Molly would be first. He couldn't quite get him to take the bet though, and of course it turned out he called it.
"Harry! We were so worried about you! How do you feel? We had a couple nice men from St. Mungos here and no one could tell us how you were! Are you hungry?"
Harry internally laughed his skinny butt off. Molly would go directly for food. The woman did care, he reminded himself, she just didn't know him in the slightest.
"No Mrs. Weasley, I'm perfectly fine. A little tired maybe, a smidge of a headache, and unless I miss my guess I should probably avoid magic for a few days, but I'm fine," Harry said with warmth in his voice.
"Bloody hell, mate!," Hermione hit Ron at that, "We almost thought we lost ya or something! And what were you thinking, stunning the girls and me like that!"
Harry didn't know how to answer that without making things worse, and the cavalry came in to save him from an unexpected quarter, "Mr. Potter, before we ask you anything about last night, I was wondering if you might consent to letting one of the fine healers from St. Mungos take a look at you. Young William here," The headmaster inclined his head to Bill who gave a jaunty salute, "Informs me about the absolute depth of your accidental magic last night, and I am worried you may have done damage to your magical core."
"My core, sir?" came Harry's response. He had been thinking of his tie into magic as his core, but he thought this may be a moment he could seize to validate some of the thinking he had been doing about it.
"Yes, your core. You see magic comes from a place within all of us that we call our magical core, it's the part of a person that all of their magic flows from. When or if, perhaps, we use too much magic, or magic of too high strength, we run the risk of damaging that place inside ourselves and not being able to use magic in the same way again."
This explanation was different than the one Harry had constructed for himself. His explanation felt more correct, but who was he to disagree with a man who had been over a century old before Harry's own birth? Harry filed it all away for consideration later.
"You can have someone take a look, sir. I'm not sure what they'll find, I really only feel tired, my magic feels the same as it did before, but they can come in and take a look."
Everyone else was just looking on during this exchange, Hermione seemed delighted to learn something from the greatest wizard of the age, but hers was the only reaction.
Dumbledore stood and strode to the door, where he ducked his head out and could be heard calling, "Healer Brent! Harry has come to and invites you to scan him."
A sandy haired man entered the room, he was tall but not quite thin, Harry reflected that without years of constant hunger and neglect he might have a similar build. The man walked up to Harry and began waving his wand in a pattern Harry identified as a pentagram with a stab towards Harry in the middle.
A colored pattern flashed through the air, and then went dark grey forming a single solid line in the air. The healer took an intense look at Harry, who blinked innocently, and turned to Dumbledore.
"He still registers as... well... dead, professor. I can't get magic to so much as confirm he has a heartbeat. Clearly the kid," Harry bristled a bit at that, "is alive, and he seems okay, but I'm not seeing a thing."
At the word dead, Molly seemed to nearly faint, Hermione and Ginny also seemed to share nearly identical looks of extreme concern. The rest of them seemed to accept Harry's word. Dumbledore just seemed to twinkle absently. Harry decided to just take this one before it went any further.
"Okay, well we can all safely agree that I'm pretty much not dead," Molly almost fainted again, the Twins grinned, "and trust me when I say I'm familiar with injuries of all kinds. By Odin, I was bitten by a basilisk once. I'm fine. Now unless anyone has an objection, I would really love to leave this," Harry pulled himself into a sitting position and look about, "conjured cot?" Harry made it a question at Dumbledore who nodded briefly, "and use the loo. And if no one disagrees further, I'd really appreciate a hot cup of Earl Grey and some toast."
Molly sensed need and moved to make some food for Harry, which he took as permission to the WC and grab a shower. He got up and ducked into his room for clothes, and then took care of his business.
When he left the tent's bathroom, Healer Brent had disappeared, and he had a full English breakfast for him as well as the cup of earl he really wanted. Dumbledore looked about to leave, and the Weasleys seemed to be in packing mode.
"I'll see most of you in a week, I trust, and Harry, do try to keep better track of this," at which point he brandished Harry's familiar 11" holly companion, "It seems the elf of Mr. Barty Crouch, one Winky, took this from you at the game yesterday and while you were busy defending the Roberts family last night, conjured the dark mark above the forest nearby."
Dumbledore left with that comment, and the day moved forward. They eventually returned to the Burrow, and Harry was badgered to play Quidditch (Ron) and badgered further to sit and talk about the day before (Hermione), and finally badgered to eat enough to kill two fully grown griffins (Molly). Harry found his way through it, and despite the desperate need to, he managed to not hex a single person even once.
During the next week Harry managed to find some time alone with his new brothers. He showed the guys his copy of the Arcanum de Manus , and he started them on its basics. They saw the virtues of work on it, if not through his work after the match then for the fact that he had worked on magic all summer without receiving a single warning.
Bill saw a way to work even if he lost or damaged his wand during his work and the Twins, of course, saw a way to prank the hell out of some 'reformed' Death Eater's kids and not be caught by virtue of their wand signatures. Regardless of their reasons, Harry showed them his field he put up to keep the Veela influence out, and he told them about how he threw off the probe from Dumbledore.
Bill seemed incredibly impressed at that, and he explained something called occlumency, which is what kept him from going crazy from the veela during the game. He also told them about how it had an opposite, called legilimency, which could be used to see things in another's mind. Bill figured Dumbledore was just trying to see if Harry was okay, and Harry didn't disagree. That wouldn't stop him from reacting unpleasantly the next time someone tried to get in his head though. The Twins found the whole process very instructive.
Molly seemed to be trying to get Ginny and Harry in the same room and to stay there, but Harry would just read some of his transfiguration texts (he was really getting into McGonagall's chosen discipline) or straight leave the room. He had no interest in Ginny. Ron just moved farther and farther away from Harry. He was constantly demanding an explanation for Harry stunning him that night after the Cup. Harry didn't feel like giving one, so the tension ratcheted higher and higher.
Hermione was beyond overjoyed to see that Harry already had done all his homework, but was equally displeased when she was politely told to bugger off after demanding to see it. Harry initially was just confident in his work and thought it was kind of presumptuous of her to demand. As her demands increased so did Harry's ire, and the cycle just mirrored Ron's. It only got worse when she saw his books and started grabbing them for reading without asking, Harry had no problem with it in general, but when she made a grab for the Arcanum , he had to refuse her and her being indignant about it just made him angrier with her.
Frankly it was just a very relieved Harry that stepped onto platform 9 3/4 the following Monday. He really needed to just get lost in the castle for a while and escape the attention of everything both Weasley, and not a Twin. He had Bill make a show of shrinking his trunk and lightening. Really Harry just did it wandlessly while Bill had his wand out. Harry parted from Bill by giving him a copy of the Arcanum that had served Harry so well over the past few months (Thank the All-father for copying charms). Bill had shown him a spell that could lock the book down to anyone but Harry himself, Bill had said he used the spell and a further rune cluster that achieved the same effect as a backup on his curse breaker's notebook.
Harry left the red heads and Hermione as soon as they hit the platform, and without bothering to agree on a car with anyone. He just searched around for Neville. He took the pledge he had made that summer seriously. Neville was a very good bloke, and Harry wanted to help him get better, and to get to know him better.
He found Neville just back of the center car in the train, and he found the slightly chubby boy surprisingly sitting next to another person he had really wanted to see. Susan Bones and her friend Hannah Abbot were sitting across from each other, Hannah next to a blushing Neville, as Harry entered the compartment. Harry knew of the two Hufflepuffs by reputation, and their reputations were good, so he was decidedly relaxed.
He managed to enter during what seemed to be an awkward silence, and he broke it with a quick greeting and request to sit. Neville and the ladies confirmed just as quickly and Harry started the conversation up again by asking about summers.
Susan started, "Hannah and I just hung around and got a bit of sun. There is a really nice private beach by where I live with my Aunt, and we went there most days. That and homework were about the long and short of our summer."
Neville's answer was much the same, but he substituted working in his greenhouse for laying on the beach. Harry accepted these answers and asked polite questions for a few minutes. He decided to spend this train ride just getting to know Neville and the others better. He wanted his god-brother, but he couldn't say that here and in front of these girls. He also wanted to get to know Susan better. Sirius had mentioned in their talks about Alice and Frank Longbottom a few others his parents had known and worked with when they fought Voldemort. Among the others were Susan's parent who died in the war a few months before Harry's had.
Harry was incredibly thankful to have found a room with these people in it because he was looking forward to finding new friends. He was also very thankful that Ron and Hermione hadn't found him. They each had personalities that made it hard to hang out with others. Ron was very loud, and had never heard of polite conversation or subtlety. Hermione was studious to a fault, and took her interest in her studies almost farther than Ron took his love of quidditch. They were mostly decent people, but their personalities and constant arguments were grating when trying to meet others.
Roughly half an hour of solid conversation after the train had started moving, a small girl with dirty-blond hair and long streaks from tears running down her face knocked on the door to their compartment. Harry noticed the tears first and the rest of her second, and before anyone else could make a move he was welcoming her in and moving her trunk to the shelf next to Susan's, interrupting her talking about some Hufflepuff traditions.
Harry sat her down next to him, and she sat there numbly for a moment while the rest of the room tried to find something to say. Harry's mind raced from the moment he saw her.
He didn't know a thing about girls. They still gave him the heebie jeebies from time to time, they were just very different creatures. He had been friends with Hermione for a few years now and he couldn't even pretend to have knowledge of them or her really.
For this strange girl though, he had a suspicion from somewhere that he didn't have to know everything about girls. He knew, from a deep part of him that had never left his small space under the cupboard at number 4 Privet Drive, exactly what she was feeling now. He recognized it like a veteran might recognize another from across a crowded room. He knew without even asking about the scars this girl had on her mind. He didn't know what to do for a girl, that was for sure, but he knew what to do for a soldier that had fought the same battles he had.
He slowly guided her into his lap, and to the surprise of everyone else in the room, and even himself to a certain extent, he guided her head to his shoulder and folded her into a hug.
Everything was quiet for a solid minute. Harry refused to meet anyone else's eyes, and the rest of them honestly didn't know what to say. No one in all of Hogwarts had ever seen Harry show affection to anyone. It was actually a pattern that had made its way 'round the legendary Hogwarts rumor mill. Hermione was seen hugging him from time to time, but Harry had never initiated so much as a handshake before.
The small girl's sobs started quietly, and filled the room after the minute, and she grabbed on to Harry and held on.
Susan reacted first after that, "Why are you crying?" she asked gently. Harry shot her a look that told her in no uncertain terms that she should be quiet. The unknown girl didn't say a word and just tightened her grip on Harry. After about fifteen minutes of her sobs becoming quieter and quieter she seemed to fall asleep.
Harry felt her breathing slow and even out, he looked at the others in the room and whispered to them, "Do any of you recognize her?"
Neville responded at the same volume, "I think she is a 'claw. A third year."
Harry looked down at the witch in his arms. "I know this feeling. I've been there."
He looked away from all of them. "You all know about me generally. I don't know you guys that well. I can honestly say though, that I'd like to know you better," he met each of their eyes at this, and then looked away again, "But I think you all know that I don't talk about my life. I don't know what everyone was told, I don't know what the public story is, but I was raised in a family of non-magicals in Surrey. They knew about magic but they hated it. They knew I was magical, and they hated me for it."
Harry paused here to collect his thoughts, and they gave him time because they knew they were getting something here that no one else had ever heard. Neville liked Harry and the girls were 'Puffs, they took what was happening seriously.
"I was made to work as soon as I could reliably stand to do it. I cleaned, I cooked, I did all of the gardening. It was my job. I did all of it as best I could, and when I failed they hurt me," Hannah squeaked at that, "I thought I deserved it, at first. I did my very best to be worth their love. I hated being hit, not because I was hit, but because it meant I had failed them. As the years went by, I eventually realized that it didn't matter if I did my chores right and never complained. They thought I was bad, so doing everything correctly the first made no difference to them. When I finally learned that just being me was what made them hate me, I remember feeling just like she," he indicated the girl in his arms, "looked."
"I... I'm not blind, guys. I saw your faces when I picked her up." They all looked a little sheepish at that, "I know that I don't do physical intimacy. I... it's just really hard for me. The first hug I can ever remember getting, Hermione gave to me, and today I was happy to have avoided having to share a ride with her. But I remember feeling like she looked, and I remember that when I felt that way the one thing I wanted in the entire world, the thing I wanted more than life itself, was for someone to hug me and to make it okay."
The strange girl shifted a little in her seat on Harry's lap, he knew she was awake and had been for a little while, he gave her a small squeeze to try and say it was alright. Harry continued even quieter than he had been, "How could I see someone feel what I felt and do anything less than my best to try and make it okay?"
They were all quiet after this. Susan put a hand on Harry's shoulder, and he looked at her and whispered thanks. He checked his watch, they had a few hours until they reached Hogwarts.
"Could one of you wake me in two hours?"
Neville nodded, and Harry rested his head in the hair of the witch in his arms and gently fell truly asleep with her.
After the other three in the compartment were sure Harry and his guest were actually sleeping, they each looked at each other in quiet astonishment. Neville was the first to break the silence.
"We can't tell anyone." It was a declaration, not a question, and he gave a hard look at the two girls in the compartment with him. He had known them for years, they had attended the same terrible high society functions that he had growing up, so they were friends with a fair history of shared misery. Neville also liked Harry, and he knew that Harry was worth his loyalty.
Susan responded to him first, "We're Hufflepuffs, Nev, we know loyalty. I think there is a reason we've never heard rumors of this, I think we are the first people he has ever told about this. I mean we would all have heard inside of a day if he ever told Ron."
Hannah spoke up at that, "Harry has always been nice to us. The only person he has ever been mean to is Malfoy, and let's face it, we'd all be mean to Malfoy if he focused on us even a tenth as much as he focuses on Harry."
"I've lived with Harry since first year. A lot of people made fun of me, and a lot of people have called me a... a squib. Harry never did that, he's always been really supportive. He is a really quiet guy usually. I've never seen him act like this before. He has always taken bullying really seriously, but it's usually people trying to bully him," Neville said.
They lapsed into silence after Neville added his final two cents. All three of them were thinking of the confidence Harry had displayed in them. They spent the next hour and change in silence.
At two hours since Harry fell asleep with the third year raven, Susan gently shook his shoulder until he woke. He made his way to consciousness slowly, and when he made it there he thanked Susan and gently shook the girl curled up in his lap awake in turn.
When the girl finally woke, Susan, Hannah, and Neville shared a look before Hannah spoke up for the whole group.
"Harry, we just wanted to say thank you for sharing what you shared. We want to let you know that we won't talk about what you said with anyone else. It means a lot to us. We talked a bit after you fell asleep and we just wanted you to know we're with you."
Harry genuinely smiled for the first time since he left Hogwarts the previous year, and Neville and the girls knew they made the right choice.
Harry looked to the girl who was now awake, but had made no move so far to escape his lap.
"I know you were awake too, when I told them about myself," She colored at that, but still didn't move from his lap, "it was at least as much for you as it was for them. I want you to know that I've been through a lot of darkness. I'm not demanding you say anything, but would you mind telling us your name and why you were crying?"
Her voice was timid, it had an unsteady quality, as though it wasn't used very often, "I'm Luna. Luna Lovegood. The other Ravenclaws don't like me. I... I see things sometimes, I see creatures that other people can't, I see and talk to them, and they tell me things sometimes. It's why I came here, the blibbering humdingers said that there was a boy in this compartment that could make me feel better, a boy here that could help me. The other girls make fun of me a lot, they tell me I don't belong and they take my things and hide them."
Luna clearly had a really hard time talking about it. She buried her head in Harry's chest, and it wasn't really clear anymore if her voice was wavering because of lack of use, or because of the subject matter.
"I lost my mummy when I was nine, and ever since then my daddy hasn't really been... all there, you know? He still takes care of me, but it's not the same. This year it was just too much. I was barely on the train and They were just coming at me already and my Daddy left and I just couldn't-"
Harry put his arms around her again and shushed her quietly. "The humdingers were right, Luna, I'll help you. I'm here to help, just calm down, ssh, ssh, ssh, you're not alone here anymore."
The girls and Neville especially were astounded by the side of Harry they were seeing now, and they each individually resolved to try and be there for Luna just as much as they were there for Harry. They knew Harry was not a liar, they didn't doubt him, but if they had needed proof that Harry had lived what he said it was there before them. How else could a boy who was infamous in the Hogwarts rumor mill for having never started a hug or shared a kiss become the person who was wrapping his arms around a girl whose name he had only just got?
Harry moved his arm briefly from around Luna to get a look at his watch. He then glanced outside, "I think we should change into our robes, we should be pulling into Hogsmeade station in about a half hour. Neville, you want to give the girls the compartment to change first? Looks like we should plan for some bad rain."
They took turns changing, and when the girls came back in after Harry and Neville changed, Luna took a seat in Harry's lap again, turning his face a right red much to the amusement of everyone else.
The rest of the ride went free of serious moments and tears, and as they exited Harry gave his customary greeting to Hagrid. The group of five filed into a carriage and made their way to the castle.
The closer to the castle the group got, the warmer Harry felt. There may have been a rainstorm raging outside, but as the castle approached, Harry felt like he was being welcomed somewhere with open arms. He had never really felt this feeling before, he didn't understand it, and for a moment he was terrified that it was another kind of veela influence.
He immediately close his eyes and rushed to his core, only to find an overwhelming yellow glow that was shades deeper and dwarfed his tie into magic by dozens of orders of magnitude. The soft influence of the glow flowed through the shield he had erected against the veela and any other comers, but the glow didn't seem to be making him feel anything, it seemed to just be accepting him. It took him a moment, but he finally put it together, this was Hogwarts!
It was an oddly feminine presence, and she... she loved him. He could feel it in his bones. He knew Hogwarts had always felt like home, but this was very different. She wanted him here, she was his home. This was incredible. He opened his eyes to see of anyone else felt it, Nev, Susan and Hannah all looked around blandly. They didn't seem to be feeling anything, but Luna met his eyes and winked.
She leaned into Harry and whispered, "You can feel her, can't you? The Lady? Sometimes she talks to me too. She's taken care of me the last two years. She loves all of us."
Luna gave a smile that struck Harry as beautiful and ethereal somehow, and as she smiled the carriage ground to a halt in front of the entrance hall. They all stepped into the storm outside and made their way quickly to the entrance, and as soon as they made it inside, Harry got a pulse that felt like warning from the lady of the castle, and drew his wand and threw up a protego over the group in the same movement.
A series of red water balloons impacted on his shield, and Peeves blew a loud raspberry at them for avoiding his attack, and he refocused on a group of second years who were looking about themselves with a profound sense of wonder. Harry quickly threw a shield over them as well, and called up to the poltergeist.
"Peeves! Can I talk to you for a moment?"
He seemed to be unnerved by being politely addressed by a student, and he swooped down to Harry with a look of sly curiosity.
"What does the Harry Potty want with little old me, hmmm?"
"Peeves, I'll buy you a case of dung bombs from Zonkos if you don't target the second years here in the hall, and if you leave the first years be this year."
The castle's spirit of mischief made manifest got a pensive look on his face and responded, "Peevesy-weavesey couldn't possibly do that for less than four cases."
"Two cases."
"Two cases and a case of wet-fireworks."
"Deal."
Harry shook hands with the spirit that was almost as old as the castle itself, and when he did he felt a warm pulse from the castle as if it approved of the bargain.
The three girls and Neville all looked slightly astonished about what had just happened. For Harry it had been a very spur of the moment idea, but he felt it was a good one. He turned and resumed his walk to the great hall with the rest of his group. After three steps, the castle sent him another warning but he let Peeves have a free shot on him and didn't even turn when he felt a water balloon impact his back. Peeves gave a cackle of delight and the group passed the threshold into the great hall proper.