Harry rubbed his eyes tiredly after temporarily removing his glasses. He could currently be found sitting alone in his dorm room with a multitude of books opened around him with random pieces of parchment covered in his notes strewn all over his desk. This wasn't a rare sigh, especially in the Ravenclaw tower this time of year.
It was the beginning of June and the end of year exams were fast approaching. The exams weren't nearly as important compared to his fifth year OWL or his seventh year NEWT examinations, but they were a way for him to measure his capacity so that he can feel safe to continue with his independent studies. He was certain that he didn't need to study for his Transfiguration or Charms exams, nor did he think he would ever, but that didn't mean he could completely disregard his other subjects in favour of them.
So here he was, in his room, alone on this beautiful summer day, looking over all of his notes on the subjects he wasn't so confident in, making sure he knew everything the fifth years in their study group had told them they should know if they wanted to get excellent marks.
Ever since his return from Christmas break, Harry had spent most of his time either learning the spells and theory from the books Flitwick had given him, practising his rudimentary Occlumency skills by learning to clear his mind as quickly as possible, studying with Archades or watching the House Quidditch games. He had also, through Archades, become somewhat closer with Stephanie and Cedric, though he still didn't feel too comfortable around them yet; he just didn't know them well enough.
That's not to say he knew anything about Archades either other then for some reason he isn't living with his 'still alive' family, he likes to watch Quidditch, that he has lived with Stephanie's family since he was little and that he has a crush of monstrous proportions on said girl. However, having been forced to live, study and spend most of his time with the boy for the majority of the year, he can safely say that his presence was becoming less and less of a bother.
Magically packing away his books and notes with a flick of his wand, Harry decided on going for a walk after washing his face; he was naturally an active boy and being cooped up inside a dark room all morning and most of the afternoon just didn't sit well with him.
Passing several students on his way down studying in silence and trying not to disturb the fifth and seventh year students diligently studying for their OWL and NEWT exams, Harry opened the door to his common room and snuck out without anyone noticing.
The castle of Hogwarts, where magic was taught to children and performed by professors on a daily professor was not just a pile of rubble, clumped together to form a castle, it too was full of magic. Harry had, by accident, happened on a number of secret passages that cut his travelling time around the prestigious school by at least half that could be accessed by a number of different means. Of course, he had found most of these when the infamous Weasley twins were on several of their 'great escapes' from the caretaker Filch after one of their rather ingenious pranks. The two may not be academically impressive, but their ability to make people laugh was matched by no one.
Approaching the statue of Odbog the Weird, Harry tugged on his earlobe causing the fairly large stone structure to temporarily move aside, allowing him passage to a rather dark and winding tunnel that would lead him to a completely different section of the castle.
Exiting the secret passage by tapping the back of the statue on the other end of the tunnel, Harry stepped around it and found himself in a part of the castle that mostly had empty classrooms and deserted corridors. The school was initially built one thousand years ago as the only magical institution in Europe, so obviously, it catered to more students; now though, the excess space was just left deserted so that curious students could explore if they so wished.
Harry passed by several corridors, not really caring where he was walking just happy to stretch his legs when he suddenly heard a shouting voice along with several muffled 'bangs' coming from a particular room on the other end of the hallway. Letting his curiosity get the better of him, Harry followed the noises to the room in question and quietly opened the door, glad that it made no noises so it could announce his entry.
Once inside, Harry was surprised to see a girl who looked to be in her sixth or seventh year with unnatural looking bubblegum pink hair tied in a pony tail that fell below her neckline. Harry continued to watch her in the shadows of the room, closing the door behind him as he entered, interested in what a student would be doing all alone – when it was so close to exams – in some place like this.
The girl had set up several 'targets' which were probably chairs transfigured into human like dummies placed randomly around the room that were charmed to sporadically move in a certain way every so often. It was as if she were practising for a war of sorts with the way she was firing off stunning, disarming, bludgeoning, and blasting hexes with great accuracy at each target and every time one dummy got destroyed, it would reform magically and continue with its previous task.
Harry continued to watch the heavily concentrating girl for a further five minutes who was now panting heavily and sweating up a storm from dodging and rolling away from invisible spell counter-fire he guessed while countering with her own spells. If he was honest, he would definitely say he was impressed – never before had he seen someone taking their studies to this level before.
Finally, the charms on her targets ran out and they fell to the floor as regular old chairs, closely followed by the girl who fell on her back and looked up to the ceiling while panting hard and trying to regain her breath.
Harry waited a few moments before making his presence known "That was impressive…"
The girl jumped in fright and got into a defensive position immediately with her wand pointed at him "What the fu… who are you?" she asked in curiosity, after apparently deciding he wasn't a threat – there were benefits to being a first year after all "and how long have you been watching me?" she asked, eyes narrowed.
Harry just shrugged "Harry Potter and I heard the commotion you were making from outside so I decided to take a look" he said, not in the least bit intimidated by the wand still pointed at him.
The girl seemed to curse herself "Damn it, I forgot the silencing charm" she seemed to correct her mistake by pointing to the door and sending a light blue coloured spell at it which made the door flash once in the same colour before disappearing.
"So…who are you and what are you doing here?" Harry asked, interested. The girl shrugged before answering.
"I guess there's no harm in telling you, my name's Nymphadora Tonks, but everyone calls me Tonks unless they want to be hexed" she said with a gleam in her eye which Harry ignored completely "and I'm practising for when I go try out at the Auror academy" she said with a proud smile.
Harry scrunched his face up in confusion "I'm not claiming to be an expert, but from what I've heard, it wasn't particularly hard to join the Auror academy, so why practise so much?" he asked the now obvious Hufflepuff girl when he noticed the front of her yellow trimmed robes.
The girl smiled widely; probably delighted that someone was taking an interest in her – she seemed the type to crave attention if her hair was any indication – Yeah, you can join the corps and get one of those lazy ass instructors at the academy and become a second class Auror, or you can try and do what I do and impress someone of enough importance so that they take you on as a protégé!" the bubbly girl explained energetically.
Harry nodded, understanding the situation now "You think you're ready then?" he asked, making conversation.
"Nope, but I still got a year to make sure, I'm only sixth year you know!" she said with a wink and cheeky grin. Harry was reminded of Remus when he talked to this girl, well, Remus when he was in 'pranking' mode and not 'parent' or 'moping' mode.
"You're not very good at charming or transfiguring things…" Harry observed, rather bluntly, motioning to the chairs strewn out on the floor and getting an angry glare from Tonks.
"You think you can do better ickle firstie?"
Harry grinned and flicked his wrist, allowing his wand to appear in his hand, before Tonks could comment on his wand holster, something not many people invested in; Harry was flicking his wand and waving it in intricate patterns while muttering incantations under his breath.
Tonks watched, amazed, as the seven chairs in the room turned into much more realistic, yet still rather fake looking, dummies with small holes in their faces that began to move around much more quickly and randomly then the ones Tonks had charmed earlier.
Before Tonks could ask what the hell he had just done, a small ball was shot out from one of the dummies and it impacted square on her forehead, causing her to recoil in shock. Wiping at her forehead when she felt a liquid like substance and fearing the worst, she was surprised to see yellow paint.
She yelped in shock when another struck her on her behind. Swiping her hand on the now marked spot, she was angered to see red paint. Turning to the now grinning Harry, she was about to hex him when he pointed behind her.
"You might want to start dodging Nymphadora" he advised wisely. She didn't even have time to admonish him for the use of her name when she heard the sound of several paint balls being shot at her, forcing her to drop into a crouch and roll out of the way.
"When you hit them with anything, they'll stop firing at you momentarily but they will continue after 10 seconds, go on Nymphadora" he said with a grin as he watched the tired and livid girl dodging and weaving out of the way of more paint balls while firing off curses to temporarily stop their attack.
Harry made sure that the animation charms on his transfigured 'human paint-ball shooters' lasted for at least fifteen minutes before cancelling them, the pink haired girl looked like she was about to drop from exhaustion.
"That was the best workout ever" claimed the now panting sixth year "if I can do something like that twice or three times a week, I'll be a shoe in for an apprenticeship in the corps" she said, with a grin despite her state of exhaustion.
"I agree, all you need to do is keep those animation charms up twice or three times a week when you exercise" Harry said with a smirk.
Tonks got off the ground and glared at him "Nu-uh" she began "you can't just be like that after letting me see how beneficial it would be, and let's not mention how a first year can perform such magic in the first place" she said with a glare.
Harry didn't answer her second question "What's in it for me?"
With her eyes still narrowed she answered "You get to spend time with a beautiful older woman such as myself" she provided, striking a pose and, if he wasn't mistaken, overly sparkling eyes. When Harry didn't seem to be impressed by the offer, she narrowed her eyes again and smirked.
"I can teach you advanced charms, hexes and curses that you won't learn for years if you keep animating those dummies for me three times a week" she said, playing on the boy's Ravenclaw side and hoping it would work.
Harry stopped immediately and considered the offer, it was definitely tempting. He wasn't 'scheduled' to learn any spells like that until his fourth year, far too long a time to wait for his liking.
"We have a deal then" Harry said, holding out his hand which Tonks grabbed in a handshake.
"Then, I'll meet you here in three days then Nymphadora" Harry said, before attempting to walk out the door while dodging random hexes sent by the irate girl.
"Ah, what the hell?!" came the somewhat girlish squeak from Archades. Wondering what his friend's problem was, he looked up from his breakfast to what he was looking at only to see Lizzy.
"Good morning Lizzy, you look well, is there a problem?" greeted Harry to the small elf dressed in her small flower covered dress.
"Good morning Master Harry sir" she began in her squeaky voice "Master Remus telling Lizzy to give Master Harry this letter, he says its very important and that Lizzy must deliver quickly!" she gushed, sounding out of breath.
Suddenly, her eyes zoned in on the bacon and eggs he was eating and she narrowed her eyes. Harry wanted to laugh at how overprotective the little mother hen house elf could be, but it was endearing so he let it go. She hopped up onto his lap to get a closer look at his foot, scrutinizing it with a wary eye before, reluctantly, she nodded.
"It is not as good as Lizzy's food, come home soon Master Harry sir so Lizzy can make proper food! You is growing boy after all!" she squeaked before disappearing with a pop.
Seeing Archades's dumfounded look, he shook his head in amusement "She was always a mother hen, anyway, I wonder what was so important that Remus had to send Lizzy…he usually just sends Bartholomew if he needs to send a letter…"
Opening the envelope, he took out the piece of parchment inside and began to read:
Dear Lucky
We have problems; the Ministry has been snooping around the inn and not even bothering to be discreet about it. I only figured out what they wanted or rather, what their purpose was today. I sent a proposition to get an alcohol serving licence and ward licence only to have them immediately denied. Usually these things take a few weeks to get approved of given all the red tape and are hardly denied unless you are a wanted criminal.
To have it instantly denied is something unheard of, so, I enquired what the problem was and I found it.
Her name is Delores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic and also – coincidently – the same person who is trying to pass all those awful anti-werewolf legislations through the Wizengamot that makes me getting a job almost impossible.
I have filed an appeal and my case will be heard before the Wizengamot on August the 1st. I don't want to ask this of you Lucky, but if you can do some research and possibly find a good lawyer, I would be appreciative. We have a better chance of winning if you were to find a solicitor instead of me; regardless of how I act, werewolves will always attract discrimination sadly.
Are you studying? How is Archades? How do you like the Quidditch? Would you like to go to the World Cup? It's being hosted in Japan.
Get back to me when you can.
Moony
"What's that about?" asked a curious Archades.
"My uncle is trying to start an inn that will welcome all types of people free of discrimination in Knockturn Alley, but because of its nature and the fact he has his monthly problem, the ministry is trying to veto it" he explained, filing away the dark look that came over the boy's face at the mention of his uncle and the ministry.
Harry had told Archades about being raised by a werewolf friend of his families shortly after returning from Christmas. He figured it was only fair seeing as he knew how he was raised, without having been told by the boy himself.
"What are you going to do?"
Harry kept silent for a while in contemplation before speaking "I need to research past Werewolf related and Death Eater trials" replied Harry.
Archades looked confused and startled "How will that help?"
Harry grinned "The ministry has always been incompetent when it comes to Justice" Harry began, sounding much older then he really was when talking politics to his friend "All I have to do is show their hypocrisy blatantly in court and the Wizengamot won't have much of a choice but to drop their stance, especially if they don't want the dark creatures of Wizarding Britain revolting" he said with a grin.
Archades looked worried "Harry, you're playing a dangerous game" he warned "I totally agree with you" he quickly amended, seeing the dark look in Harry's eyes "but many other wizards won't, they are too set in their ways and fear what is different to them – you'll make enemies…"
"I already have enemies" Harry replied in an emotionless voice, one which sent shivers down Archades's spine.
Changing the topic, Harry brought up his other issue "Do you know of any reputable Wizarding solicitors?"
Archie nodded after a moment's pause "The Zabini's lawyer is someone named Tonks; from memory" he looked thoughtful for a moment "they would need to be good if the Zabini's continue to use them, Mr. Zabini is a real perfectionist and a ruthless businessman – he doesn't like to lose."
Harry grinned, this was perfect!
Nymphadora Tonks was panting as Harry concentrated on keeping his animation charms in effect on his paint-ball shooting dummies. He had added an extra one silently after five minutes without Tonks's knowledge, adding to the difficulty of the exercise. This was their fifth or sixth time doing this and the girl was growing on him, much like Archades had done without his knowledge. They both had this endearing innocence about them that just attracted his attention.
Archades seemingly bipolar personality regarding his 'learning mode' and 'playful mode' always made him someone you wanted around for a laugh, he even mentioned this to the boy who had only replied with a 'so I'm the comic relief? I can live with that'.
Nymphadora was very insecure, which stemmed from her abilities as a Metamorph, or more simply, a person who can change their appearance at will. All her life people have wanted her to act, or be, someone she was not and it limited the amount of honest friends she could have. Boys would lust over her due to the prospect of being able to 'play' with her abilities and girls naturally disliked her for this. The elation she had shown when Harry had practically outright ignored her Metamorph abilities entirely except for saying it would be helpful in her profession was something that was firmly entrenched in his memory.
Harry had never really cared for anyone other then himself and Remus when growing up. It didn't mean he wished ill on others, he was usually just apathetic to everything; desensitized to tragedy as a result to seeing and remembering such a thing that happened when he was three. Now though, he pondered if not having friends and being a loner contributed to that somewhat, because he certainly didn't mind his current friends; they provided a welcome relief to his usual brooding silently while playing his guitar.
Seeing that Tonks was about to collapse, he cancelled the charms and allowed her to plop to the floor.
After several moments in which she caught her breath, she spoke.
"Did you get down the shielding charms I taught you?" Tonks asked, interested.
The girl had kept up to her end of the bargain, teaching him two very useful shield charms. The one he had already known, the 'Protego' charm, merely used magic to create a barrier that nullifies most curses and jinxes with equal force, the two that Tonks taught him, though while more situational, could very well win you a battle if used correctly.
The first was the 'Contego' charm which conjures a circular golden shield at the tip of the casters wand that acts as a literal shield that the caster can control and manoeuvre as much as they pleased; however, it also had the added bonus of feeding off of weaker spells and using their magic to strengthen its defensive power. The charm wasn't as good as the 'Protego' mostly because it took more magic to use and unless you absorb spells, it does the exact same thing as it, except it is movable after cast. It was best used in situations were you are underestimated or duelling numerous lesser skilled wizards who fire weaker spells at you, allowing you to leech their magic to use as your own until you are prepared to attack.
The other shield charm she taught him was the 'Declino' charm. This charm isn't so much a shield charm as the other two, but it can protect the caster from attacks while preserving your magic. It works by warping the space before the caster with magic and 'guiding' magic past the user, harmlessly, away from you. The only drawbacks of this charm were that you shouldn't use it if you are fighting with allies around you – less you deflect your spells into them - and that it doesn't work at all with spells that 'lock on' to their targets or the more powerful dark curses.
"I think so" Harry replied "there's only one way to find out" he said with a grin. Tonks mirrored his grin and stood up and aimed her wand at him.
"En garde Potter!" without any other warning then her initial shout, she started firing disarming and stunning curses at him in quick succession.
As soon as the first spell left her wand, Harry's eyes widened in surprise, but he flicked his wrist and started casting the three shield spells he knew to block, absorb or deflect them.
Tonks grin grew wider as she sent more and more curses at him at an impressive speed in a flurry of red and blue light. Harry was hard pressed to avoid them all and was beginning to sweat himself from overexertion. After a while of this, Harry saw Tonks increasing her speed by not even saying the incantation for each spell and firing them silently at him.
As a result of Tonks's most recent strategy, Harry had to physically dive out of the way to avoid some of the quicker spells.
Harry knew he would eventually get hit at the rate she was going and mused that Tonks was enjoying this way too much for his liking. Waiting for the next barrage of spells, Harry put a little extra power in the shield which bought him a precious few seconds; a few seconds he used to reactivate the paintball dummies who began to take some of the curses for him and fire paintballs at his opponent to distract her.
"Hey, that's cheating!" he heard Tonks yell over the sound of spell fire. Harry grinned and transfigured a nearby chair into a wooden block so he could take cover and recover. After a few moments, Harry peeked up over his barrier only to see a flash of light before darkness.
Harry awoke to have his vision blinded by pink. Shaking his head to get rid of the disorientation the stunning spell obviously left him in, he picked him self up off the ground and glared at Tonks for good measure while dusting him self off.
"A stunning spell to the head? Getting a tad bit carried away aren't we Nymphadora?"
"Stop calling me Nymphadora brat!" she countered, only for Harry to ignore her. If she didn't need him in tact to help her train, she would have cursed him to high hell already. It had nothing to do with the fact that the kid was growing on her. Nothing at all.
"Anyway, you're the one who cheated first!"
Harry shrugged "You're a sixth year, and you can't deal with some transfiguration?"
"Transfiguration in battle is…it's cheating! I hardly know anyone who's not a professor that can do what you do!" she whined.
Harry shook his head in exasperation. After a few moments of silence, he voiced the question that was gnawing away at his mind "Nymphadora is your father a lawyer?"
Ignoring the twitch in her eye at the liberal use of her name, she answered "No, my dad's an accountant, my mother's the lawyer, why?"
"My uncle is having some troubles with the ministry, he asked me to find him a lawyer…"
Harry explained the problem to the girl, confident that she would be sympathetic given the way she was treated at school for her abilities.
"I'll pass on the message, who's your uncle by the way?"
"His name's Remus Lupin"
Tonks's eyes widened slightly before grinning "Remus is an old friend of my parents, this shouldn't be a problem. I didn't know the Potters were related to him though…"
Harry shrugged "They're not, he's my guardian, and it's just simpler to refer to him as uncle when I'm talking to others."
"I'll see what I can do, in the mean time, let's do that again!" she said with a grin, a stunning spell on the tip of her wand. The last thought Harry had before he was bombarded with spells once again was that he really needed to learn silent casting!
Harry looked at the small envelope in his hands warily before looking around the Ravenclaw common room to see several excited or disappointed students discussing the contents of their own. He had just finished his exams a few days ago, something he was very glad for.
As predicted, the Transfiguration and Charms examinations were easy for Harry, his only problem was if they wouldn't mark him well if he added more information then necessary or answers that were above his school level.
The toughest examination had definitely been History which was just a mass regurgitation of names and dates that he had crammed the night before the actual exams. Astronomy was fairly easy, as was Herbology.
The Potions exam was rather tricky to call. He was certain he did well with brewing the rash-curing potion but one-sided animosity between the Potions professor and himself would surely hinder his results somewhat, or at least he thought.
"Well, how did you go? I promise not to laugh" said Archades cheekily, waving his 5th in the year rank around in his face. After the exams, each student's scores are tallied up and averaged out so they could be ranked amongst their peers. It wasn't much of a surprise that most of the top ten consisted of Ravenclaw students, however, both were pleasantly surprised to see that Stephanie had ranked 6th and Cedric 10th.
Harry opened the letter and quickly skimmed over the letter, shielding it from Archades's view, much to the boy's chagrin. Harry then looked up to the boy with a neutral face, using his Occlumency techniques to clear all thoughts from his head.
"I did okay" he supplied with a small grin. Whipping out his wand quicker then Archie could follow; Harry slapped his score card on his friend's behind.
"Subiungo, Infragilis" he cast in quick succession, causing his score card to become stuck to Archie's behind and unbreakable.
"Hey, what the hell Potter, I don't swing that way!"
Harry shrugged and sat back down, enjoying watching Archie chase his own behind so he could see his scores.
"Oh, goddamn it, has anyone got a bloody mirror?" Archie asked in exasperation. A fourth year girl handed him her pocket mirror that he used to see the score sheet on his behind. Many of the students laughed at the blushing boy who was awkwardly twisting around and trying to catch the contents of the score sheet on his ass.
"Hah, victory is mine Potter! It says here you're seventh!" he said smugly.
Harry grinned, to Archie's confusion "That's a '1' you idiot, you're holding the mirror on an angle" several of the students who overheard the declaration hurried over to see the scoresheet themselves, much to Archie's horror.
"Look at it this way Archades, you're finally getting girls to stare at your bum" he said with a grin at the still flushed boy.
"Laugh it up Potter! Straight O's or not I'm still saying I let you ride my coattails to that 'O' in Potions!"
Harry grinned smugly at his friend who was still probably in denial. While they were scored in a numerical way to allow for easier ranking, they only see their scores with a letter grade designation; 'O' being the best and meaning Outstanding followed by 'E' for exceeds expectations, 'A' for acceptable, 'P' for Poor, 'D' for dreadful and 'T' for troll. There was a rumour that any Ravenclaw that gets below an 'A' for any class was kicked out of the house but that theory was never tested as the mandatory study groups made sure that neverhappened.
The room hushed when the portrait opened allowing Professor Flitwick to enter "Ah, I see everyone's seen their results then, congratulations!" he squeaked before chuckling and removing Harry's scoresheet from Archie's behind, much to his relief.
"I do believe you can find a better place for such a wonderful score card Mr. Potter!" chirped the tiny wizard merrily.
Harry nodded in agreement "Yes, I think Stephanie's behind would be much better" he agreed, as if he was some sage making a wise call.
"Do it and die Potter!" Archie roared while everyone chuckled.
Flitwick clapped his hands and reached into his robe pocket "For the second to seventh years, I'm sure you know the drill, for those un informed first year students, you should know that the number one ranked student of each year received a special gift from me should they be in Ravenclaw" he said merrily, chuckling when a random seventh year shouted in the back 'when aren't they?' cockily.
"Quite, quite, so come and collect your gift, a 50 galleon git voucher for 'Flourish and Blotts' good until the end of next year!" he said with excitement. Seven separate students, it really did seem Ravenclaw took the top in every year, approached the tiny man, including Harry, to receive their gift certificates.
"You've all earned some rest, so have fun for the rest of the evening until the feast tonight! I'll see you then children!" he chirped before leaving.
Harry walked alongside Archie to the great hall for the end of year feast. The feast was a time all Ravenclaws looked forward to; being the intellectually superior of the four houses, this was their time to shine and claim the house cup. Ravenclaw had claimed the house cup for the previous five years in a row successfully, using their superior smarts to claim as many points in class as possible to make this possible, it was something they all took pride in as a house.
Harry was knocked out of his thoughts when he walked around the corner and had the wind knocked out of him when someone walked straight into him.
Regaining his bearings, Harry stood up and dusted himself off; however, as he was going to help the careless person up, he noticed they were already standing, with a cruel smirk on their face as their coal black eyes shone with glee.
"Potter, 7 points from Ravenclaw for not watching where you're going" he said smoothly before stalking off, his robes billowing behind him.
Archie remained blissfully unaware of the blatant unfairness of the decision, opting to follow behind his friend and continue to believe Snape could do no wrong.
Oh well, not like it mattered.
"Yes, welcome students to the end of the school year, and what a wonderful year it has been!" boomed the loud and cheerful voice of Albus Dumbledore, their headmaster "I hope you all bear with an old man's ramblings for a short while yet while I make a few necessary announcements; I promise you will be sinking your teeth into a large delicious feast soon enough" he declared, eyes twinkling as he stood from his chair in the middle of the head table.
"First, I would like us all to thank Professor Robards on a wonderful year of teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, unfortunately for us, his wife will be giving birth soon to a lovely child, I'm sure, so he will be unable to return to us next year. Can I ask for a round of applause for Professor Robards in thanks and congratulations?" he said cheerfully as the majority of the school clapped politely for him while the normally scarred face of said professor was covered in a blush.
"Ah, now there's the matter of the house cup" the headmaster announced cheerfully while the entire hall lapsed into silence "In fourth place, Gryffindor, with two hundred and seventy points, a wonderful effort!" he said, not surprising anyone, the Gryffindors already knew of their low score.
"In third place…" he paused, with a large smile on his face as the students leaned in closely "Hufflepuff with three hundred and fifty two points" he announced. The puffs all cheered their own achievement while everyone else in the room gave polite applause also.
"In second place, with an impressive score…Ravenclaw house with four hundred and forty nine points!" at the declaration, the Ravenclaws all went silent while Silver and green banners magically appeared from the ceiling and cheers erupted from the snake's table.
"Which obviously means our winners this year, Slytherin house by the narrowest of margins with four hundred and fifty points!" he announced as the Slytherins continued to cheer.
Harry had to try really hard not to laugh at the dumfounded look on his friend's face. His hero had literally robbed them of their rightfully earned house cup mere minuted before it was going to be awarded to them.
"And with that, enjoy the feast and your summers!" he said with a clap of his hands as the tables filled with mouth watering food "I hope to see all of your come September eager to learn and begin another year at Hogwarts!"
Harry took one last look at Hogwarts from Hogsmeade station before boarding the express to make his way back to London.
"Got any plans for the summer?" Archie asked Cedric who had been in a conversation about all the 'pretty' girls in their year while making their way over to the station.
"My father got us tickets for the Quidditch world cup in Tokyo" he said with some pride "I'll probably do my homework as quick as possible and then take an international portkey over to watch the tournament" he said with a huge grin. Amos Diggory, Cedric's father worked at the ministry and seemed to have many connections in high places.
"Oh, you're so lucky! I wish I could go…" Archie trailed off, looking to Stephanie on his right who just glared at him "but I would much rather spend my time with my beautiful Stephy-poo" he amended with a chuckle, earning another knee in the groin for his trouble.
"You know, you're going to cause permanent damage to him one day if you keep doing that?" Harry warned, amusement lacing his voice as he looked at the amusing sight of Archie rolling around on the floor in pain.
"He'll get over it" the Slytherin girl said with a shrug.
"I think she just uses that as an excuse to cop a feel personally" Cedric said in a loud whisper, with every intention of having Stephanie hear him. Said boy had to dodge another flying knee of doom directing at his very own groin.
"Or not" he said with a grin, running ahead to avoid the girl's wrath.
"Hey Harry!" Harry heard someone call from behind him. Turning around, he was met with a familiar head of pink hair that could only by Nymphadora Tonks.
"I just got a letter from my mum, she says she's be glad to have you and Mr. Lupin over during the summer to discuss your problem, just call ahead during the weekend, it should be fine" she said with a smile. Harry nodded in thanks and bid the girl farewell.
He was ready to go home and spend time with his most precious people again.