Harry Potter and the Year After

Chapter Forty-nine: So Easily Become a Stranger

Chapter 49: So Easily Become a Stranger

In the following weeks, Harry found time to visit Teddy and Andromeda a handful of times while still managing to balance out his homework and the classes he was teaching. All the while, he fought the urge to drink.

He was surprised to find that teaching was making him get better at Defense, so much so that his homework for Professor Vector was what he did for fun after his other homework. He was actually sad when he was out of chapters to outline for her at the end of November. Hermione was impressed with the scroll of parchment he'd ended up with, which totaled almost a thirty meters long.

"Good," Professor Vector said, when Harry set down the huge scroll of parchment of homework on her desk. She tapped her wand on it. Her wand wrote a large goose egg on a corner of the parchment.

"A zero?" Harry said, surprised. He'd hoped at least for an 'Acceptable'.

"No it's a letter, not a number. It's an Outstanding," she said, smiling and looking down at what her wand wrote. "Excellent, Potter. Now, just don't forget to attend your practical exam at the end of the year. You may have your scroll back so you may study from it if you wish."

"Thank you, Professor," Harry said, surprised that she wasn't at least going to skim over it.

"You're welcome, Professor," she said, inclining her head to him. Harry smiled awkwardly as he picked the scroll of parchment up and left her classroom.

Harry stopped at his classroom to drop the scroll of homework off and then headed down to dinner in the Great Hall. The usual wave of sound reached him on the marble stairs as he made his way down. Ahead of him, he spied Draco Malfoy and Ginny, who since following them under the cover of the Invisibility Cloak, had become inseparable. As he neared them, Ginny looked behind her and her eyes brightened a bit at seeing him.

"Hi, Ginny," Harry said, to be polite.

"Hi," she said. Draco looked over his shoulder and saw Harry. Rather than saying anything, he grabbed Ginny's elbow and guided her over to the Slytherin table. Harry wondered about her again and wondered if she was alright. It had been weeks, months really, since he'd said much more than 'hello' to her.

He thought it was strange how he could have been so intimate with someone--thought he could marry her someday--and how that person could so easily become a stranger in such a short period of time.

Harry sat down across from Hermione and Ron, who had already started eating.

"I'm surprised you're already down here. What did Professor Vector say?" Hermione asked as Harry started serving himself, still deep in thought about Ginny.

"She tapped it with her wand and gave me an 'Outstanding'. Didn't even untie the string to make sure that there was writing on the parchment."

"Is there a spell that you can use to grade things?" Ron said. "I suppose that'd make sense."

"I have no idea," Harry said, "I suppose I should have asked her that. It'd save me some time."

"Or you could just skip assigning homework."

"But if I don't, then they come back to class the next time no better than they were the last. It's frustrating."

"Of course," Hermione said, nodding. Ron rolled his eyes.

"So anyway, I was thinking of working on some trick moves too," Ron said, clearly continuing what he'd been previously talking about. He glanced at Hermione to make sure she was paying attention, "Ginny's been working on the Wronski Feint since Seamus is such a bad Seeker. She's trading him positions and letting him play Chaser while she'll be playing Seeker and--"