THE LIGHTNING LORD

Chapter 15 : October 31st

During the day, the rest of the students kept staring at Harry Potter, and to a lesser extent Neville Longbottom. However, both of them were quite uncomfortable with the attention and because of this Harry was quite agitated. On the other hand, Neville was terrified that he had been You Know Who's target. So by the end of the day, Harry pulled the other boy aside.

"It's an honour to finally speak to you, Heir Longbottom" he said in a formal voice.

Neville, having been trained very well by his grandmother, replied shyly "It's an honour to meet you as well, Lord Potter. What can I do for you?"

Harry smiled. "Please call me Harry. After all, we're god brothers. As far as I'm aware, my mother was your godmother, and your mother is my godmother. We don't need to be formal with each other."

"Then please call me N-Neville" he stammered.

Harry mentally frowned as he witnessed that Neville had self-confidence issues. Of course, Harry had those too, he just didn't show it. Being told that you're worthless and a waste of space for the majority of your early childhood does tend to affect you. He decided to do his best to improve Neville's confidence.

"Susan told me you're very good at Herbology. Do you work with plants a lot?" he asked. It was true due to having already befriended Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott just that morning. Neville's face lit up. Harry smiled internally. They started walking to the library while chatting with each other.

After dinner, Harry was on his way to the library again when he heard a voice. "Potter" Harry turned and came face to face with Daphne Greengrass. He gave her a smile and said "Hello Daphne. You can call me Harry if you would like."

She gave him a brief smile and replied "I wanted to thank you. Ever since that incident in the greenhouses, Draco Malfoy has been avoiding me. He had been harassing me about a betrothal contract for months now. And, I was wondering, if you wanted to be my friend" she said softly.

Harry kept a blank face and stared at her. "If you want to be my friend solely because you feel sorry for me after reading about the horrors of my past, then I don't think it's a good idea" he said carefully.

"It's not because I feel sorry for you. But I can understand your reasoning behind it. You don't want pity. But I do want us to be friends and get to know each other. What do you say?" she asked.

Harry knew that Daphne did not know about the Potter-Greengrass marriage contract. And he knew that Cyrus Greengrass was not going to be informing her anytime soon. It just wasn't something you would put down in a letter. So a friendship would probably help them form a lasting relationship. Or at least he hoped. "Friends" he said, shaking her hand.

********************TIME SKIP*********************

The next two months seemed to fly by. Severus was replaced by a man named Horace Slughorn and Sirius was still in St Mungo's. While his animagus form was helped him preserve the most of his sanity, he was still in a very bad shape, physically and psychologically. So the healing process was going slowly. But Amelia had purchased two-way mirrors and given each to Sirius and Harry so that they could communicate. Harry was fascinated by it. He wrote a letter to Lord Rangok to see if they could invest in the company and build on the magical device. Godfather and godson spoke to each other frequently and whilst Sirius still felt guilty, he slowly came to understand that he really had been manipulated. Harry was very happy that Sirius was recovering and told his godfather about his perfect memory due to Occlumancy, about how he remembered Sirius from when he was a baby and hence could not believe that he could have betrayed them, about finding Peter using the Marauder's Map, contacting Andromeda Tonks and Amelia Bones and setting up the big trial to free him.