𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, harry potter

˗ˋ 69

 CHAPTER SIXTY NINE
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-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH A CONSENSUS 
IS REACHED

. . .

Hermione cleared her throat as Harry took his seat, Aviana's hand on his shoulder within an instant, a stern looks on both of their faces. Aviana leant forward.

"He's a dickhead, if that helps." She murmured. "In second year he used to try and knock my earmuffs off when we were dealing with the Mandrakes."

"What did you do?" Harry asked, looking up at her. Their noses were almost touching.

Aviana pursed her lips. "I used a... simple sticking charm to glue his down.... They didn't come off for a week afterwards." She admitted, as she sat back up, patting his shoulder.

Harry fought a smile, the feeling easing his temper. Hermione was watching him nervously, as though she could tell from his exact expression that he believed that, to a certain degree, this level of interrogation from people like Zacharias Smith was her fault, that in her explanation she hadn't clarified that this wasn't an opportunity to interview the walking freak-show.

"So..." Hermione said, her voice particularly high-pitched again. "So... like I was saying... if you want to learn some defence, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet, and where we're going to -"

"Is it true," interrupted one of the girls, without a care in the world for the premises of this sort of thing, gaze on Harry, "that you can produce a Patronus?" That seemed to get more people's interest than Zacharias' tirade of questions.

"Yeah," Harry replied, defensively.

"A corporeal Patronus?"

Harry's head tilted. "Er - you don't know Madam Bones, do you?" He asked.

The girl smiled. "She's my auntie," she replied. "I'm Susan Bones. She told me about your hearing... and your father's, Aviana." Susan looked slightly nervous for a moment. Aviana didn't say anything, particularly stony-faced at the bleak memory. "So - is it really true? You make a stag Patronus?"

Harry nodded.

"Blimey, Harry!" Lee Jordan exclaimed, looking deeply impressed. "I never knew that!"

"Mum told Ron not to spread it around," Fred added, grinning at Harry. "She said you got enough attention as it was. And now with..." He trailed off, eyes flickering over to Aviana.

"Fuck off." Aviana rolled her eyes

"She's not wrong," mumbled Harry and a couple of people laughed. The veiled witch sitting alone shifted very slightly in her seat.

"And did you kill a basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office?" demanded Terry Boot. "That's what one of the portraits on the wall told me when I was in there last year." He didn't expand. Didn't want to say exactly why.

"Do you not listen at all?" Aviana scowled. "It's the Sword of Gryffindor, Terry. Of course he did."

Harry felt his ears turned pink. "Yeah... what Aviana said." He swallowed, his confirmation eliciting another round of shocked noises and looks of awe. She was acting so... he didn't even know what, but for the first time in his life he was glad that he wasn't looking directly at her because he didn't think he would be able to take it. To have people listing things he had done in the past few years could never have been more embarrassing. If any bone in his body was actively trying to impress her, and considering his performance before Umbridge a couple weeks ago, Harry was sure there was at least one, then this was the last way he would go about it.

"And in our first year," Neville spoke up, "he saved that Philogical Stone -"

"Philospher's," Hermione hissed her correction.

"Yes, that, from You-Know-Who," finished Neville. Hannah Abbott's eyes were as round as Galleons.

"And that's not to mention," Cho began, in a quieter voice. "All the tasks he had to get through in the Triwizard Tournament last year - getting past dragons and merpeople and acromantulas and things..."

There was a murmur of impressed agreement around the table. Harry's insides were squirming. He was trying to arrange his face so that he did not look too pleased with himself. And Aviana was still messing with his hair, Ron leaning backwards slightly every few moments to see if she was and making faces at Harry when it was confirmed.

Look," Harry said and everyone fell silent at once. "I... I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be modest or anything, but... I had a lot of help with all that stuff..."

"Not with the dragon." Aviana voice interrupted from behind him, and Harry had to fight the smile from his face when he looked back at her. "You didn't have help with the dragon." She reiterated. "All you had thought about before was summoning the broom."

"How do you know that?" Hermione asked.

"I was trying to blackmail Rita Skeeter." Aviana waved her hand dismissively, oddly conversational about it. "But the flying was all you."

"Yeah, well -" Harry attempted to brush it off, but could easily anticipate further pushback from Aviana if he continued.

"And nobody helped you get rid of those dementors this summer," Susan Bones added.

"No," Harry swallowed. "No, okay, I know I did bits of it without help, but the point I'm trying to make is -"

"Are you trying to weasel out of showing us any of this stuff?" Zacharias called out.

"Here's an idea," Ron said loudly, before either Aviana or Harry could speak up. "Why don't you shut your mouth." He was glaring at Zacharias again, an expression shared by both him and Aviana.

To his credit, Zacharias at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "Well, we've all turned up to learn from him, and now he's telling us he can't really do any of it," he said.

"You've got absolutely no chance of even coming close to passing any of your exams if this is how utterly shit you are at listening to people." Aviana huffed. "That's-"

"That's not what he said," Fred chimed in, winking at Aviana.

"Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" George inquired, pulling a long and lethal-looking metal instrument from inside one of the Zonko's bags.

"Or any part of your body, really, we're not fussy where we stick this," Fred shrugged.

"Yes, well," Hermione coughed hastily, as to interrupt. "Moving on. The point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry?"

There was a murmur ofgeneral agreement. Zacharias folded his arms and said nothing, though perhapsthis was because he was too busy keeping an eye on the instrument in George's hand.

And that seemed to be that. 

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