A Snake's Son

Gaming and Downtime

He was especially looking forward to Potions and Transfiguration, Charms was also high on that list and he would be playing in another quidditch match as well, soon. Hermione was looking through the books she had been given for Christmas, her parents and Harry had the same idea about gifts it would seem. She was in fact looking through one of the books on the dark arts that Harry had gotten her, on the practical application of dark curses and charms. The book was meant to try to defend spells the author though had been labelled incorrectly, he never implicitly taught the spells, or told you the incantations. But there were enough pieces scattered about that Hermione was able to reverse engineer them. She turned the pages with incredible care running her hand over them as she settled the covers back onto her lap.

Ron has spent a few nights with some of his brothers and his dad using mirrors going through problems with getting the accounts and property out of the hands of their mother and Dumbledore. It was tricky, Molly had been brainwashed into the cause as was Ginny so there was little they could do for them, but Percy was still an unknown and it was looking like there needed to be a clean break at some point in the future to allow them their freedom.

Draco had been spending time on learning the materials on magic passed down his family, they were all extensive and, in most cases, they were designed for spying and information gathering, a few unique potions too. He was currently wearing the cloak Harry had given him, it was now lined with pockets, some of them in use. Harry doubted he would ever know what was in all of them.

Harry himself had resumed his training under Tom, perfecting the spells he had been taught over the summer. There were about seven spells in all four in parcletounge. The thought that he was going to have to face challenges down there was exhilarating it made the black cloud that surrounded him swirl and fluctuate, it was hard to tell the bigger and smaller clouds apart; they seemed to be getting closer and closer together. He had yet to ask anyone about them but nothing major seemed to be happening, once they almost touched and he had felt his magic tingle but other than that they didn't seem to do anything.

They were hours out and the compartment was quiet and peaceful, no one was talking and the only sound was of the wheels on the tracks.

Soon they were pulling up to the station, unloading their trunks from the train Harry looked up at the sky, clouds were starting to cover the tops of the trees and it was beginning to get dark. Walking up to the pathway, it was bathed in steam from the train, the lights that were shining out of the carriages looked like glowing eyes. They flagged down one of the carts, which was being pulled by those strange horses that no one else seemed to see except Harry. They spotted Neville hurriedly asking around about a toad. He looked like he was about to approach them before he realised who they were and backtracked as fast as he could.

Snickering with Draco and Ron, Harry climbed into the carriage helping a grinning Hermione get her luggage inside. Once back inside they went to their rooms and slept looking forward to the next day.

There was still two days before lessons started again and they were determined to have fun.

Hermione had arrived in the boy's room that morning as Harry had asked her too, Crabbe and Goyle were sitting by the door working through homework that they had neglected to do over the holiday.

"So, everyone, you all met Imperi, well she sent me a game over Christmas. It's called Cold Earth, Zombie shooter and its virtual reality. Want to play with me?" Harry asked grinning as he looked around at his friends, they all shared an apprehensive look, but Hermione stepped forwards and nodded first. Soon followed by the other two after a shared look of confusion, Draco and Ron had absolutely no experience with any of this and had no idea what was going on.