Midnight In Hogwarts | Harry Potter FanFiction

Capitulum Quattuordecim

Hermione's visit to the Marauder Quarters ended up being a blessing in disguise. Sirius and Remus had been extremely sympathetic towards Hermione and had even offered to prank Ron just to make her feel better. She had been the one to reveal that Ron had left Harry to come back from Quidditch practice alone, something that had infuriated Sirius. Luckily, Quidditch practice was put on hold for the time being so Harry didn't have to worry about Sirius monitoring the practices like a hawk.

It was also during this visit that Harry and Remus had told Hermione about the Half-Blood Price's Potion's book. She had been extremely hesitant to trust anything in the book, especially after learning that some on the Prince's notes contained dark spells. Harry assured her that Remus double checked everything before passing on the knowledge and offered to show her his potions journal to prove it. While Hermione read through it, Harry and Remus discussed Remus' progress into who the Half-Blood Prince was. Remus was currently going through old 'Daily Prophets' to find any Princes that attended Hogwarts fifty years ago, since that had been when the book had been published. The only problem was that with the research Remus was doing for the Order and for Madam Pomfrey on empaths and natural healers, he didn't have an over abundance of time to find some mystery student.

After that day, Hermione had been welcomed to visit the Marauder Quarters and Remus whenever she wanted. Remus and Sirius had become a mixture of honorary uncles/confidants that could advise her on her feelings better than Harry could. Harry offered an ear whenever Hermione needed one but this was certainly uncharted territory for him. He was relieved that Sirius and Remus offered their help because some of the conversations that consisted of Hermione ranting and Harry listening were becoming too uncomfortable for him. Harry sympathized with Hermione's situation but he wasn't about to abandon his friendship with Ron, even though Hermione was avoiding him at all costs.

Of course, hanging around Ron meant having to put up with Lavender Brown who seemed to have attached herself to Ron's hip. Ron enjoyed the new relationship immensely, returning to the laughing and joking Ron that everyone knew so well even though he was still oblivious to anything happening around him. Harry's embarrassment to Ron and Lavender's sporadic snogging was one of the few things that Ron didn't notice or just ignored. It was becoming more and more of an occurrence that when Harry spent time with Ron, he ended up spending time alone whether it was reading in the Common Room or wandering around the Library.

As Christmas drew near, Harry found himself once again the object of desire by many girls. It was rather disconcerting to see the number of girls huddled around the mistletoe that was hung along the corridors for a chance to catch him for a kiss. Ron was absolutely no help so Harry found himself usually in the company of Hermione and Cho, both of whom found the situation funny but never voiced their opinions. Cho had recently broken up with Michael Corner and had joined Hermione in the 'boys are gits' campaign which made Harry feel uncomfortable whenever they started badmouthing boys. He tried not to take offense to what they were saying but everyone can only handle so much slander about their own gender.

With the colder weather, Harry's training had been moved indoors which limited the number of places Sirius and Harry could work on wordless dueling. They were now working on defending wordlessly against wordless spells along with testing Harry's limit. Harry could easily cast powerful shielding charms for everything Sirius sent at him but that would require Harry to cross the line and tap into his reserves. It had been a slow process but Harry was finally able to know where the invisible line was between his actual power and his magical reserves. All he had to worry about now was the time when he was caught off guard.

Another change was the constant presence of Hogwarts. It seemed that after Malfoy's 'attack', the castle was taking a more active role in protecting Harry. She would send him waves of warning whenever someone approached regardless of how many times Harry tried to assure her it wasn't necessary. Malfoy had kept his distance since that night and had resulted to glaring hatefully at Harry whenever they were in class together. Harry had to wonder what had been said to Malfoy to make him stay away so he could use it on Professor Slughorn.