If I owned Harry Potter then things would be considerably different. Instead of being dead (which they aren't really, they're on a tropical island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean) Sirius or Remus would play paper, rock, scissors and looser would be the headmaster of Hogwarts, winner would be the DADA teacher. Luna would be minister of magic with Tonks (also residing on a tropical island with Remus) pretending to be Luna when the minister wanted to go hunting for a strange creatures and Harry and Hermione would be married and possibly running a detective agency with Harry subbing for DADA when Sirius or Remus can't or don't want to teach. Fred (tropical island dangit!) and George would take turns running the most successful joke shop in the wizarding world and teaching potions at Hogwarts. Ron and Ginny would both playing for the Canons. Since none of that has happened, obviously I don't own Harry Potter.
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"Now, you're going to show me everything that you can do now and I'll teach you what I've learned from the journals so be prepared to get up early." She declared and he smiled.
"Thanks Hermione." He said and they parted to go to their respective rooms.
But when Harry returned to his room, he couldn't fall asleep. Too much was going through his mind and Ron's snoring, even if he was partially used to it, didn't help at all.
As he listened to Ron his mind jumped to the issue of Wormtail. Harry sat up in his bed and looked around quickly. When he didn't see the rat in the usual place, Harry gently crept out of bed and began to search around the room for the traitor.
In this instance, the many times he had crept around the Dursley's house came in handy because his well honed ability to creep without making a sound and Ron's snoring to cover up any accidental noises kept the other boys from waking from their sound sleep.
But no matter where Harry looked, he could not find the little rat. He growled under his breath and sat back down on his bed. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down and it seemed to work.
He could ask Ron about wormtail in the morning, so that would be alright, he tried to reassure himself of this several times but he still felt uneasy about not knowing where the traitor was. Perhaps Hedwig had gotten hungry and decided that the rat would make a good snack? If it hadn't meant that Sirius's best chance of freedom was now a little ball of fur and bones then he would have hoped that it was true. Harry sighed deeply and then made a decision. If he couldn't free Sirius now, he would at least help him out.
An hour later, Harry once more found himself with nothing to do. He looked out the window blankly and gradually his eyes became unfocused. Immediately a giant silvery bubble appeared in front of him and the walls began to glow a sort of lavender sort of color with threads of yellow green running through like vines. He sat up and focused but as soon as he did, all of the lights vanished.
Harry frowned, confused about what was going on. He unfocused his eyes again and immediately the silvery bubble appeared, just beyond the forbidden forest and the walls had a lavender light overlaying them. He looked around the room, keeping his eyes slightly unfocused, and he saw his wand glowing a deep orange color. The books in the room all glittered with a very weak grey light and he realized that his skin was glowing a similar grey color as the books but the glow around him was much stronger and threaded with sparks of silver. The bracelet around his wrist blazed with silver fire so bright that his concentration broken and he could no longer see the light. Spots danced in front of his aching eyes so he was reluctant to try out this new ability again.
For the next few hours, Harry practiced being able to make things move around, freeze them in place and conjuring the fire that he had used to slightly torment wormtail. He discovered that when he attempted to freeze any fire that he summoned, the fire would quickly start to smolder and eventually it would go out unless he stopped concentrating on freezing it. He practiced and practiced until his finally his body ignored his busy head and collapsed in exhaustion.
That night, Harry dreamt that he was swimming through muddy water. There was a cloudy figure ahead of him and the figure was saying something to him but he couldn't hear what it was and no matter what he did, he couldn't get any closer to the person.
The next morning, Harry awoke with the vague feeling that someone had been yelling at him. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and he stretched and tried to remember what he had been dreaming about.
He washed and dressed quickly when he realized that even Ron was up. He raced out of the room and down the stairs to see Hermione, her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.
"I told you to be up early today Harry." Hermione snapped as he came down the stairs, a sheepish look on his face.
"Sorry Hermione," Harry began but before he could go on, Hermione cut him off,
"Come on then, we'll be late to breakfast." Harry meekly followed the obviously furious girl, who berated him as they walked,
"…sent Ron up there three times and he couldn't get you to wake up! I told you Harry that you should have been up early so we could start practicing!" Hermione snapped as they walked. Finally they made it to the Great Hall and Hermione stopped talking and contented herself with sending irritated glares at Harry. Harry found himself shrinking back slightly in both guilt and from a slight sense of preservation though not as much as he could have since he knew that Hermione wasn't really, truly mad at him. He had seen her when she was truly mad and this was only mildly irritated, not even in the same level as when she was angry with Ron.
Harry shuddered slightly. He would rather go against dragons, dementors, Snape, the ministry, and even Voldemort a dozen times than have Hermione really and truly mad at him. The young wizard frowned a bit, unsure about why this was but he was glad that she wasn't really mad at him now. His expression grew darker as he saw Hermione take a copy of Voyages with Vampires out of her bag and then prop it against a milk jug.
"That book is a load of rubbish." Harry snapped at her as she began to pick out what she would eat for breakfast. Hermione shot him a sour look,
"It is not a load of rubbish; it's quite insightful and interesting." Hermione retorted though there was something in her expression that made the green eyed wizard think she was just saying it out of habit. Harry shook his head,
"Remember what I told you last night?" he asked and she nodded and her expression darkened slightly,
"I remember, even if you didn't."
"Well, we find out that he's a fake." Harry whispered, ignoring Hermione's comment and trying to make sure that no one over heard them, "He never did anything he said in his books, other people did and he got their stories and oblivated them so they wouldn't know that they had done anything. He tries to oblivate me and Ron with Ron's wand and leaves Ginny to die." Hermione paled and her eyes widened.
"He did what?" Hermione hissed in outrage, her eyes burning.
"He was going use Ron's wand to destroy our memories and get us locked up in St. Mungo's for good, leave Ginny to die and allow Voldemort's diary to use her soul to remake himself. If Lockhart had succeeded then we'd have had two Voldemorts running around. He thinks only about himself and his own fame. You read his books, what impression did you get of the author?" Hermione paled further. She pursed her lips and sent her book a glare that should have set it aflame. As it was the book only sat innocently against the milk jug. Hermione slammed it close and put it back into her bag.
Everyone, except for Ron who was stuffing his face, stared at Hermione's uncharacteristic behavior and a few wondered how Ron could have gotten her so angry when he had his mouth full.
As they walked to herbology, Harry wondered if he was a bad person for being glad that Hermione was now directing all of her anger, including the irritation she had originally felt towards him for not waking up, at Lockhart. He thought about Lockhart and remembered all the idiot had done and decided that an angry Hermione may be a bit much but the smiling dimwit deserved all that was coming to him.
Harry was shaken from his thoughts when they entered the greenhouse and he saw the familiar leaves of the mandrake plants. He looked at Ron who was heading over to them and then noted that Neville didn't have a partner.
"Neville, come sit here with me and Hermione." Harry called to the slightly pudgy boy. Neville's eyes widened and he shot a glance over to Ron. Ron looked confused and somewhat hurt as Neville took the Weasley boy's usually spot at Harry's side.
"Hey Weasley, get over here!" said the boy that Harry recognized as Justin Finch-Fletchley and Ron shot a hurt look at Harry before joining the Hufflepuff boy.
"What was that about?" Hermione whispered.
"I'll tell you later." Harry replied as Professor Sprout entered the greenhouse, looking considerably more cheerful than he remembered her looking during this lesson. Then he realized that Lockhart had not confronted him since he didn't use the flying car which mean that the whomping willow hadn't gotten hurt which meant that Sprout hadn't dealt with the idiot this morning.
"Right then people, today we'll be repotting Mandrakes today. Now, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?"
The lesson went precisely as Harry remembered it, except for the fact that Ron was not in their group and it wasn't Neville who got knocked out from the immature mandrake's cries, it was Ron.
As they left Herbology Hermione looked at Harry with an expectant expression on her face and he sighed,
"I don't want Ron to get hurt for being my friend. Last time around you both nearly died. I can't push you away, I need you too much to do that, but I want Ron to have a normal Hogwarts experience and that means that I can't be close to him anymore." Harry explained, not noticing the slight tinge of pink that had appeared on Hermione's face. Hermione frowned,
"You do know that he's going to be mad and irrational if you intend to remove yourself from him. He hasn't done anything, yet, to warrant being pushed away so your distancing yourself from him now looks somewhat suspicious." The muggle born witch said and Harry blinked.
"I didn't really think about that," Harry admitted, "I just want him and Ginny to be safe." Harry blinked again as something came to him, "Hermione, why do you think that Ron will react like that? I know he will but that's from knowing him for ages but the two of you have known each other for barely a year now. And how did you know that I wasn't lying last night? And why did you immediately assume that I time traveled when I hadn't said anything about it yet?" Harry asked all his senses on alert. He reached for his wand, slowly so the girl who looked like Hermione wouldn't notice. The maybe not Hermione shook her head,
"I'm not sure Harry. It's just that ever since I saw you in Diagon Alley, my mind has been working faster and I've been making all sorts of connections that I hadn't even thought about before. I've been reading and comprehending everything I can get my hands on. I can even understand the physics text that I couldn't make heads or tails of last year. I can tell when people are lying and if I know enough about the person then I can make a good guess as to what they'll do next. When you said what happened, there were only two logical ideas, that you had a particularly vivid dream or that you had time traveled. You and I are both new to the wizarding world and you don't exactly read for pleasure Harry so it was a logical guess that you wouldn't have known what a basilisk was and I know that you've never met Moaning Myrtle before last night, her reaction to us proves that much," Harry nodded and a wry smile appeared on Hermione's face,
"And honestly, a girl's bathroom is the last possible place, other than a location outside of Hogwarts that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets would have been, though I suppose it wasn't originally a bathroom. Modern indoor plumbing wasn't added to Hogwarts until the early eighteen hundreds. The school was closed for two years while it was installed." Hermione said quickly. Harry would have said something else but they had arrived at Transfiguration.
McGonagall passed out beetles to make into buttons and Harry absently flicked his wand and completed the assignment without thinking about it. He instead started to think about what Hermione had told him.
How was it that he and his friends suddenly had new powers and abilities that they certainly had not accessed the first time around? Was it only the twins, Hermione and himself that were able to do these things? But Hermione didn't mention anything about being able to toss around fire or wandlessly make things float; she had only mentioned an increase in her thinking abilities.
Not that she needed any help there Harry thought as he began to play with the button, multiplying it and then allowing some to keep their beetle legs and watch as they raced around. A few more wand motions had their movement coordinated and now the button beetles were dancing.
Perhaps Hermione's new abilities came from somewhere else? Harry shuddered at the idea of another horcrux diary, especially if it came from his vaults.
"Mr. Potter!" Harry was jerked out of his thought process by McGonagall's sharp voice.
"Yes Professor?" Harry asked quickly, waving his wand to stop the button beetles from moving and then changing them back into a single black button.
"Mr. Potter, perhaps you should go to Madam Pomfrey and get your hearing checked?" Professor McGonagall suggested, "I have called you twice before you answered." Harry blushed,
"Sorry Professor, I was thinking." McGonagall nodded,
"As I was going to say, fifteen points to Gryffindor for an exemplary combination of transfiguration and charms, another five for doing all of it wordlessly and two points from Gryffindor for not paying attention." McGonagall declared and Harry smiled,
"Thanks Professor." he said and the stern professor smiled slightly and nodded before she stalked away to overlook the other efforts of the students. Hermione finally managed to get Harry's attention.
"Harry, that was incredibly!" Hermione squeaked and Harry turned to where Hermione had already transfigured half a dozen beetles into perfect, shiny black buttons. A few of the buttons even had some intricate carving on their surface. Harry shrugged and again caused his buttons to again regain their legs and dance about while he waited for the lesson to be over.
"We learn how to animate and multiply things like that in a few years. The legs came from partially reversing the transfiguration; just enough to give them legs without going so far as to giving them back their brains and the coordinated movements are because of a type of animation charm. It was nothing very hard, just a lot of spells working together. You've done stuff even better dozens of times, or at least you will." Harry whispered to her, making sure that the other students nearby who were still struggling with their own button beetles couldn't hear him.
Harry showed Hermione the more elaborate things that they could do with the buttons and had fun transfiguring them into a variety of things, including a jet black songbird that burst into a song that reminded Harry of a phoenix song and he wondered how Hermione managed to do that. By the end of class they had earned Gryffindor another ten points and both were in a considerably better mood, especially since they were supposed to go to lunch next which meant that Hermione would have some time to show Harry what she had learned from the journals.
But instead of going off to the room of requirement, they were stuck going to lunch since Ron had been awakened from his mandrake induced coma and immediately homed in on the pair of them.
"Come on, I'm starving!" Ron had said before Harry or Hermione could make up some sort of excuse and get away.
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