Midnight & Destiny | Harry Potter FanFiction

Capitulum Viginti-tres

For the next week, everything seemed to go back to normal...well, as much as it could for Harry. Thankfully Angelina had granted the team some time off so that left two extra nights out of the week that could be dedicated to schoolwork. The Council had taken a step back with the difficulty the D.A. had during the previous lesson and started focusing on easier aspects to offensive dueling before they started work on Patronuses. They needed to keep everyone's spirits up in order to prevent the early frustration everyone was bound to feel.

The Gryffindor victory against Hufflepuff was the final straw for the majority of the Slytherins in Harry's year who went out of their way to stalk Harry whenever possible for an opportunity to curse him. Their presence was quickly noticed and Harry soon found that he was never alone. Fred and George took their own approach and made the sneaky group of Slytherins the main target of any pranks they could come up with. There were even times when Harry noticed Sirius in the halls talking quietly with the twins. If Harry didn't know better he would swear that Sirius had been helping the twins out.

Probably the biggest surprise of the week was that Harry was finally improving in Occlumency. He had surprised Professor Snape by pushing the man out after two memories on Sunday and had improved even further to pushing Snape out after one on Thursday. His shielding was also improving forcing Professor Snape to poke and pry for nearly fifteen minutes before being able to view a memory. To say that Snape was amazed with Harry's sudden improvement would be an understatement. He was caught without an insult to throw at Harry for the first time in over two and a half years.

Unfortunately Sirius, Remus and Professor Dumbledore were having no luck into the strange occurrence that pulled Harry to find Firenze although Dumbledore did admit that he had a few suspicions. It didn't help that Firenze was being extremely tight-lipped, talking only in riddles whenever he was confronted about what had happened after Remus had left for help that night. Harry didn't know who to be more aggravated with: Professor Dumbledore for not voicing his suspicions or Firenze for keeping quiet when he obviously knew something. Didn't they understand that Harry hated not knowing?

If they did they didn't seem to care. Harry understood that sometimes it was necessary to keep secrets but whey did they feel the need to hide something about him from him? It just didn't make sense. He had a right to know why he couldn't remember what happened that night.

Homework was becoming more demanding pushing Harry to ask Remus for help when Hermione was too busy with her own assignments and helping Ron with his. Sirius was backlogged with essays from first through third years, something that made him scarce during the evenings. It was almost funny to see Sirius behind a mountain of parchment looking...well...serious but it also made Harry realize just how dedicated Sirius was to being a decent Defense teacher.

Walking back to the Gryffindor Tower from another long study session, Harry could barely keep his eyes open as he walked the path from memory. He had finally finished his Transfiguration essay that he had been working on for three days and really didn't want to think any more tonight. His head ached and at the moment taking a troll club to it seemed like an extremely good idea.

If he had been paying attention Harry would have known he wasn't alone before it was too late.

Just as Harry was about to step on the moving staircases he was hit in the left side sending pain throughout his body. Falling to his knees, Harry flicked his wrist and instantly had his wand in hand before turning towards the threat. "Lumos," he said through his teeth to reveal three familiar faces that had been hiding in the shadows. Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle. Great. Just great.

"Well, well, well," Parkinson said with a smirk as she slowly approached. "It looks like 'Perfect Potter' is finally all alone. Not so tough without your fan club, are you?"