𝗷𝗮𝗻𝗲, harry potter

˗ˋ 101

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ONE
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-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH JANE ADJUSTS

. . .

October passed, November too, and the letters between Harry and Jane seemed to slow. It wasn't that they didn't have as much to say to each other - because God, the list that Jane was keeping of necessary things that didn't fit into each letter was going from one double-sided sheet to another - it was simply that their time was already precious enough, and the stores of it in their lives were becoming increasingly diminished as weeks went by. 

Harry had been busy with the building of 'Dumbledore's Army', as Jane found it to be called, he, Fred and George had been banned from Quidditch too. Harry had been replaced by Ginny - which had been cause for mixed celebration in Grimmauld Place, which was mostly turned sour by Sirius's ranting on the uproar that would have been caused should that have taken place when James was on the team. He had to deal with Umbridge and all her new rules and repeated stinging in his scar and too life-like dreams plaguing his sleep. 

Although she couldn't quite compare with the goings on at Hogwarts and the troubles Harry was forced into facing, Jane had her own problems too. They did seem completely inferior to what Harry endured, but Jane had her mocks throughout the end of November and the last couple weeks of term in December, all of which she had to study harder for than ever before (her previous school had taught at a lower level but she was lucky enough to have the smarts to catch up) and she spent a lot of her free time catching up on a year's worth of course work for her subject choices. 

She also did a lot for the house she lived in, helping Mrs Weasley clean and navigating London with her to aide her in all her needs - the weekly shopping, shopping for clothes and Christmas as it came, cleaning stuff - as well as going to Diagon Alley and travelling to the Ministry with baked goods for Kingsley, Tonks and Mad-Eye when he was there. Not to mention the small amount of focus she had to place on her social life outside of the several adults she resided with; throughout the duration of term time, which led to hours at weekends after school spent with Eleanor - a girl in her form - and Lucas, who was the pretty decent guy in her history class and just so happened to be in the same little group as Eleanor as she tried to catch up with work and make new friends there too. 

It was... difficult. She would never admit to studying but her life at the home had been so different. She had friends at the school she went to, which didn't expect all of it's students to overachieve in every single one of it's subjects, and there wasn't a necessity for her to come home and have to help out with most things - of course there was the chores she was assigned and the general watching of some of the younger kids, but nothing like what was needed of her at Grimmauld Place. 

Jane would never complain, would never make others feel as though others had to accomodate to her schedule when she could easily work around it - and she was managing to keep up with it all just fine so with the constant Order business and meetings it only made sense for her to help out. Molly was cooking for people and she was a stranger to that corner of London, and it wasn't like Sirius could help her out now that he had been all but banished to the dingy walls of the house he had grown up in. She wouldn't complain - she couldn't, that would just cause too much drama.

But she could regret quietly how she didn't have the time to keep up her correspondence with Harry because she would like to write longer letters even though he, with the DA meetings and the necessity to travel an hour each way to actually send it to her, couldn't write that much either in return. And she wasn't able to read that much, not when she had jabbed herself in the finger so much that just touching the edge of a book page would slice her finger up and she would have to resign herself to bandaging herself up for  the night and getting ready for bed, completing her homework and studying sat in the kitchen in her pajamas. 

It was all a lot. And when it came to the last couple days of term, when the exams and homework and studying had ceased to exist with no necessity at all, Jane decided to cut herself some slack. When the lights had dimmed in the hallway and the house had gone quite with sleep - around eleven, this time, as most of the residents were over the age of 30 and tended to go to sleep earlier than Jane ever did - she hazarded out of her room, dressed in the fleecy plaid bottoms Mrs Weasley had gotten her on her last outing and the far-too-large knitted jumper with a lilac 'J' across the purple wool that was an early Christmas present from Molly after hearing her upsets with the cold at night, and Jane made her way to the library. 

That was another thing she regretted; not exploring the rest of the house during the weeks of summer that she was there, because the small - but still incredibly large - library of shelves stacked up to the high ceilings in books was something she had forgotten was there. And now finally, on the Wednesday before the end of the autumn term, she was exploring it.

A Muggle torch sat in her palm as she carefully pulled the wheeled ladder over to each bookshelf, picking herself out quite a stack that she half-read when standing on the rung beside the shelf it came from. It was peaceful, albeit slightly eerie to be stood alone in such a room - Jane often had the feeling of being watched or not being entirely alone when she was in the house, but it was something she had ultimately gotten used to over the months of staying there.

The house seemed alive, which was why the familiar chime of a grandfather clock anouncing it to be midnight didn't bother her, nor did the quite patter of footsteps out on the landing which could really be any creature or item of black magic they hadn't managed to find and throw out. One night it had been Sirius in his animagus form, another it had been a drunk Mundungus searching for a bed to sleep in and Jane was sure she had seen something oddly pink and furry dashing up the stairs once. There were doors that they themselves couldn't unlock, but it didn't mean that the creatures within them would do the same.

But Jane almost fell off the ladder when she heard the scream of Walburga Black's portrait in the hall, yet to be unstuck from the ugly wallpaper behind it. She didn't normally wake up - which meant there truly had to be something going on. And she could have sworn that she heard voices, which was never the case.

And so carefully, feeling the unease she had of the first few nights of her being the only one of her age in the house, Jane made her way down from the ladder and clutched her books to her chest as she raised her torch and made her way out of the library, leaving the door slightly ajar as she went.

Peering over the bannister down the singular set of stairs to the ground floor, she could see the rectangle of light spilling from the kitchen. Walburga had beeen shut up again, and Jane was careful to tiptoe past her as she approach the kitchen, leaving her pile of books on the circular table in the middle of the entrance hall. Her bare feet froze against the stone tile of the steps down into the kitchen, blinking hurriedly to adjust to the light. 

In front of her, she saw Sirius looking rather upset. "Sirius? Is it Mundungus again?" She asked, unaware of how much the bright light of the kitchen would affect her and she blinked blearily at the sight of it, forcing herself to adjust.

"No... no."  Sirius shook his head, but instead of explaining he simply gestured to the back end of the chilly room, and brushing hair back out of her eyes, thumb clicking off her torch, Jane turned to face where she was looking att, a sudden shock coming when she saw a crowd of Weasleys, Hermione and Harry staring back at her.

They all looked half-asleep and terrified, Harry worst of all - although she supposed she couldn't quite say that given their heightened relationship status. But she couldn't lie; he looked as though he had suffered through a walking nightmare, and something in Jane told her it was something to do with Voldemort and the visions Harry had been getting. 

In the split second of recognition and Jane's gut feeling growing dark, Harry had somehow grown a smile on his face as he crossed the space to hug her, having the force of someone who hadn't seen her for years as his arms tightened around her waist. 

He was back, and Jane no longer felt alone.

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a/n
and boom we're back on
 book schedule