Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter One.

Taking tea with Mrs. Figg did not help Harry Potter's summer pass any faster. Cat hair floated unappetizingly in his teacup, and whenever he visited, Mr. Tibbles would stare at him from under an old moth-eaten armchair. The cat's gaze was unblinking, and Harry found the attention unnerving, though in a strange way it was almost a relief.

Privet Drive had never been a comfortable place for Harry, and understanding why he had to go back for the holidays didn't make it any more pleasant. When the Dursley's had picked him up from King's Cross Station at the end of his fifth year, the thought of a summer with them had been almost more than he could bear. Alternately angry and numb from the loss of Sirius, he had dreaded spending time with his only relations, who would take great delight in picking over any wounds that they could discover. Sullenly, Harry had retreated to his bedroom for several days. When hunger drove him from it, he was amazed to find that he was almost completely ignored by his horse-faced aunt, his bullish uncle, and his bullying cousin. Apparently, the threats that Mad-Eye Moody had made at the train station had had some effect. The Dursley's could never be persuaded to be nice to Harry, but they could be convinced to ignore him. It was a tactic that Uncle Vernon, in particular, had tried before, and Harry had never been so grateful for it. Aunt Petunia's acknowledgement of his existence stretched so far as making sure he was (for a change) decently fed. After the first few silent meals, Harry had begun to take his food back to his bedroom after it had been dished up, to avoid the very obvious silence in the dining room.

He continued to keep to himself. Every few days he sent several terse sentences to the Order, although Harry was sure that this was only a formality on his part. He was certain that the Order of the Phoenix had him under close surveillance, but he wasn't inclined to try and communicate with them beyond that. Professor Lupin had sent him a couple of letters, to which, made awkward by sympathy he did not want, Harry had sent a very short note in reply. Lupin had apparently got the hint and not written again. Ron had not. His letters, scrawled and messy, arrived every other day, and he didn't seem bothered by the lack of a proper reply. Harry always felt a little lightened when Pig, Ron's owl, zoomed through his open window. Ron's letters weren't like Lupin's - they pointedly avoided any mention of Sirius, Voldemort, or the events at the Ministry of Magic. Instead, he gave blow-by-blow accounts of the latest Quidditch matches, whether they were from the professional League or just the games he had bludgeoned his family into playing with him in the backyard of the Burrow. They were deliberately chatty and inconsequential, and in his better moods Harry appreciated them very much.

Hermione's letters hadnot been either chatty or inconsequential, and Harry had responded to them in much the same way as he had responded to Lupin's. And like Lupin, Hermione had stopped writing - Harry hadn't heard from her for a couple of weeks. Dimly, he realised she might have been hurt by his refusal to "talk about it", but he simply didn't have the energy to go through it all again. Mostly he just wanted to be left alone to brood and, bar Ron's letters, Harry got exactly what he wanted. In some ways, he began to understand that he got more than he wanted.

The prolonged silence of the Dursley's had begun to grate on him. It wasn't even funny to watch Dudley stumble through some of the chores that had once been his, Harry's; although he got the feeling that Fred and George would have found it highly amusing to watch his elephant of a cousin lumbering behind the lawn-mower (even if he was rewarded afterwards with a giant tub of ice-cream). Harry would never before have believed that he could want the Dursley's to explode at him, but that summer it would have come as something of a relief. It would almost, he felt, be a comfort to have someone to fight with; to have a focus for his anger other than himself. To have someone to talk to who would take his mind off of Sirius.

That was where Mrs. Figg came in. She was utterly batty, and Harry spent a good half hour after each visit picking cat hair out of his teeth, but at least she was company. It took very little encouragement to get her chattering about Mr. Tibbles and his little friends, and she didn't need any help to keep the conversation going. Privately, Harry felt that it was a good thing that he didn't want to talk, because he wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgewise anyway.

He was on his way back from Mrs. Figg's one night when something flew over him, just above his head. Harry groped for his wand, and it was in his hand before he recognised the flapping of wings, and saw a shadow heading toward the smallest bedroom of number four, Privet Drive. The bird was too dark to be his own owl, Hedwig, and to large to be Pig with a letter from Ron. Harry ran the rest of the way home, and pounded up the stairs to his room, suddenly alert. It couldn't be bad news - could it? Surely if something big had happened, the Order would send someone to tell him in person? Harry couldn't think of anyone else who would be writing to him.

It was a fine barn owl, and it glared at him imperiously. It reminded him of Mr. Tibbles. The owl dropped two envelopes onto the windowsill and flew off. Harry grabbed at them. One had the familiar Hogwarts Crest (although it had arrived earlier than the usual yearly reminder), and the other bore a great seal imprinted with the letters "W.E.A." - the Wizarding Examinations Authority. The OWL results. Harry swallowed - he had forgotten all about them, forgotten that Professor McGonagall had told the Gryffindor fifth years to expect the results of their OWL exams sometime in July. Suddenly, he was afraid to open them. He thought of Ron and Hermione, his two best friends, and how they were probably doing the same thing that he was right now - holding their W.E.A. envelopes and shaking. Hermione would be near-hysterical, Harry thought, afraid that mistranslating runes had made her fail her OWLS. He didn't think that she had anything to worry about though. Hermione was the brains of the trio, and she was bound to get all O's. It was him and Ron who really needed to worry...

Harry was certain that he'd done well in Defence Against the Dark Arts, but doing well in one subject wasn't enough, not if you wanted to be an Auror. He had to have enough OWLS. Standing in his bedroom with his unopened results in his hand, Harry wanted that more than he remembered wanting anything - at least in the weeks since Sirius had been killed. He had to have enough OWLS. Sirius had died trying to protect him, and the thought of revenge, unfocussed, angry revenge, had sustained Harry in the horrible weeks since his godfather's death. Now there was a way to focus his feelings, a channel to pour them through - if he only had enough...

Still staring at the envelope, Harry backed away from the window until the back of his knees hit the bed. He sank down on it, not sure that he was going to be able to stand without his legs buckling. Carefully Harry slit open the envelope and, with nerveless fingers, unfolded the sheet of paper within. He forced himself to read each result carefully before moving onto the next.

He had been rated as Acceptable in Astronomy. In spite of himself, Harry breathed a quick sigh of relief. One down. It had never been his favourite subject, and when he remembered the practical exam, and how it had been disrupted by the Ministry attack on Hagrid and Professor McGonagall, he was just grateful to have scraped a pass.

Care of Magical Creatures had gotten him an O! Hagrid would be thrilled, Harry knew (although he had to admit to himself that Professor Grubbly- Plank probably deserved some credit as well, but he wasn't going to tellthat to Hagrid!).

In Charms, he had gotten an Exceeds Expectations. That should be enough to let him continue it to NEWT level. He knew that he hadn't done perfectly in the practical, but the written part of the exam had gone well. He remembered Ron's dinner-plate sized mushroom and hoped he had done as well. Ron also wanted to be an Auror, and Harry knew that any further study wouldn't be as much fun without him.

Defence Against the Dark Arts had earned him another Outstanding grade. Harry was pleased, but privately unsurprised. He had a feeling at the time that he had done well - he had certainly practiced enough in his fifth year, Umbridge not withstanding.

The fact that he'd failed Divination came as no shock at all. Harry was just amazed that he'd managed to scrape a P. He'd been fulling expecting a D - Divination was certainly Dreadful enough.

He'd gotten an A in Herbology and was slightly disappointed. Harry knew that it wasn't his best subject, but he also knew that he could have gotten an E if he'd worked harder at it. He'd just spent too much of his revision time on other - to his mind, more important - subjects.

The D he'd escaped in Divination came back to haunt him in History of Magic. Harry wasn't surprised, the exam had been a disaster; he didn't want to think how much. He couldn't find it in himself to be too upset though, History of Magic was the dullest, dreariest subject ever devised and he couldn't wait to drop it.

When he read his results for Potions, his heart stopped within him. He needed Potions to be an Auror, and Professor McGonagall had told him that he needed an O to continue the subject. Harry only had an E. Snape wasn't going to take him. He had failed. It echoed in his brain: only an E, Snape wouldn't take him. Couldn't be an Auror.

The part of his brain that was reading automatically fell on the last result, another E, this time for Transfiguration. He'd needed an E to carry on in it, and had managed to pull his grades up to get it, but now it didn't matter. Snape wasn't going to take him. He had failed. How was he supposed to defeat Voldemort if he couldn't conquer fifth year Potions?

It was several minutes before Harry remembered the other letter. Numbly, he tore it open and recognised the neat, looping script of his Head of House.

Dear Mr. Potter,

Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Head of Gryffindor House
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry had to read the letter several times before it sunk in. Another year of Potions! The thought of it almost made him happy, but he knew that Snape would make the year hell. Having been forced to accept Harry into advanced Potions, Snape would be even nastier than ever. After what had happened to Sirius, Harry found the idea of enraging Snape a grimly pleasant one.

Rifling through the Hogwarts envelope, Harry found the sixth year form. He rummaged for a quill and started trying to choose his subjects. Five were easy. He remembered the career advice he had been given in the fifth year, the prerequisites for becoming an Auror, and ticked off Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms, and Potions. He needed a minimum of five NEWTS at E level, and Care of Magical Creatures would give him an easy pass there, so he ticked that as well. But McGonagall had said he needed six subjects for sixth year, which left him one more to choose. He studied the rest of his options. Some, like Arithmancy, were out immediately, as you needed to have studied them at fifth year level to progress. Others had a more open entry. Harry counted them off on his fingers. He could choose his final course from between Astronomy, Herbology, Muggle Studies, History of Magic and Divination. Harry snorted to himself - as if he was going to choose one of the last two! - but he didn't know which of the others he was going to pick.

In the end, he chose none of them. Instead, he wrote quick notes to Ron and Hermione, asking them how they did on their OWLS, giving them his own results, and wondering what subjects they were going to take for sixth year. He didn't want to end up in a class without either one of them, so he decided to wait until he knew what they were taking before making his own choice. If nothing else, it would probably get Hermione talking to him again.

Harry woke the next morning to a buzzing sound, and blearily recognised Pig, Ron's owl, hurtling around his room. Hedwig could never have gotten to the burrow and back so fast - Ron must have written to him yesterday, and their owls had crossed each other in the night.

Harry,

Harry was puzzled. Didn't Ron get a letter from McGonagall as well? He thought of how Ron would react if he, Harry, was allowed to go ahead with Potions anyway, and winced to himself. He'd think that Harry was being shown favouritism because he was the "Boy Who Lived", and if past form was anything to go by he'd be rather upset. Harry didn't think that it was entirely fair either. Surely if Snape could take one extra student, he could take two. And while Ron hadn't done as well in Transfiguration, he had beaten Harry in Herbology. Harry sighed to himself: Ron was definitely going to be pissed.

He had a point about Muggle Studies though. Getting into Auror training needed good grades, and for Harry Muggle Studies would be an easy pass - and he'd get to do it with Ron. There'd be no more cold nights up on the Astronomy Tower, no more being covered in Stinksap, no more feeling himself drift into coma with Binns, and no more being marked for death by Trelawney.

Except he WAS marked for death, or at least marked with death. Divination had been good for showing that at least, and Professor Trelawney wasn't a total fake - and neither was Firenze, who had saved Harry's life in the past, more than once. Harry knew quite well he had no talent or liking for Divination but, sitting in Privet Drive that morning with the sun on his face, he also knew that he wanted an eye kept on both of the Divination teachers that year. If he took Divination - and Harry's stomach roiled queasily at the thought - then he was likely to fail it at NEWT level, which would mean that he'd need E's in all his other subjects to be accepted for Auror training. It was tough, but doable, even without the safety net of Muggle Studies. Harry wavered a moment. The thought of dropping Divination, as Ron and Hermione had done, was a very attractive prospect, but one that suddenly chilled him. Ron hated the subject and had already given it away. Hermione wouldn't go back to Trelawney's classroom if you gave her a thousand Galleons to spend on SPEW. If he, Harry, dropped it too, then he'd have to rely on getting information from and about Trelawney and Firenze from... Lavender and Parvati, his fellow Gryffindors, and THAT prospect was just too unnerving. If Harry wanted to keep an eye on the Divination teachers - and after the events at the end of his fifth year, he did - then he would have to do it himself.

There was still nearly a week remaining until Hogwarts needed his form back, and for a few days Harry put it off, trying to convince himself that his reasoning was off, that he didn't need to take Divination that year after all. He struggled with it alone - Ron hadn't written back and Harry was saddened but not surprised. He just hoped that Ron could get over it before term started. He didn't think that he could handle being face to face with his best friend's jealousy at the moment.

He heard nothing at all from Hermione.

Finally, with two days to go before the week ended, Harry carefully marked his form with the choices that would take him away from his friends, into Divination and towards Auror training. He hoped that they would understand...