A second chapter today, because I'm feeling generous and as a thank you for all your lovely reviews and support! They make my day and I appreciate each one.Also the next chapter is fun... and I'm a impatient for it. See the end for more notes
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Much later, Harry was returning to his cupboard to sleep after having used the time turner. Despite scheduling meals, breaks and sleep, he was always glad to get back into bed for another few hours once they'd finished their extra day. He just hoped he'd be able to turn his head off long enough to get some actual sleep this time.
His mind hadn't stopped turning the recent revelation of trust over in his mind. And it was keeping him from relaxing enough to go to sleep.
He let himself into his cupboard and got changed into his pyjamas, smiling when he saw the big steaming mug of Hot chocolate Winky had left there for him. Downing his night time potions, and casting a few quick detection charms over it, just to be sure, he took a long pull.
Winky made the best hot chocolate. Sweet, rich and wonderful. He was pretty sure it was a lot of real melted chocolate with just a little bit of milk added.
He snuggled into his nest of blankets, and he felt some of the restless energy drain out of him, now he was behind his wards.
He took another sip of the hot chocolate and grabbed one of his mum's big woollen jumpers from his nest of blankets. It dwarfed him, but was soft and warm and smelt faintly of roses. He'd found it in the back of her wardrobe. It was very comfortable.
He was really tired and just wanted to sleep, but his mind would stop racing. Detention with Snape had been odd. He'd been decent. He almost seemed concerned! Maybe Bill's faith in the man wasn't misplaced.
The detention with Snape was one of thing, but mostly, the thing that was really rattling around in his brain was the idea of trust. The idea of trust itself, he couldn't seem to let it go.
It was mind-boggling.
He hadn't been able to stop thinking about trust since he'd talked to Bill. Or since Hermione had said she was with him no matter what. Or really since Charlie had been there for him after the first task.
Ever since realising, he actually trusted them. He couldn't get that epiphany out of his head. It felt huge, and he couldn't seem to let it go. It kept repeating like a broken record in his mind. Who he trusted and why, and which moment had proven to him that he could trust them. Especially since Bill's help with Professor Snape really had worked. Today's detention had helped. He had learnt a lot.
He could trust them. Three people, he trusted completely without a doubt. Charlie, Hermione and Bill.
It shouldn't matter, but it did. Normal people trusted their friends and family like it was nothing. But to Harry, it felt big. It felt huge.
He'd never had anyone to trust before. Not really.
He trusted Hermione, who had walked through hell with him.
Charlie, who had held him after the first task and had listened to him.
Bill, who had been there for him over the yule break, through that ritual, who hadn't yelled at him when he fell asleep on him, who's advice was constantly sound.
Fred and George who set Peeves on their own brother for him, and left Gryffindor for him, knowing they'd get their mothers howler and further disappointment.
Neville, who risked his grandmother's wrath for him when he chose to leave Gryffindor for him.
He trusted them. There was nothing he wouldn't do for them, he realised. They were his now. His people. They mattered. He'd do anything for them. To keep them safe and happy.
And it was bothering him, he couldn't stop thinking about it. He'd never trusted before. Not really. He took another long drag of his hot chocolate and bit his lip, then pulled out his mirror before he lost his nerve.
"Hey, Harry" Charlie said, when he answered it. He looked tired but seemed to still have been up.
"Did I wake you?" Harry asked quickly.
"Nah, just got off shift, was getting ready for bed, what's up Harry love?"
"I trust you, Charlie," Harry said the words pouring out of his mouth.
Charlie blinked.
"I trust you, Charlie," Harry repeated as if the words could hurt, "you and Bill and Hermione. And Fred and George and Neville. I trust you. I've never trusted anyone."
"ah..." Charlie said, looking achingly sad for a moment as if he understood.
"I trust you. And Bill. It scares me." Harry said, "I... I fell asleep on him the other day, and he didn't yell at me for it. He didn't care that I'd just wasted two hours of his time sleeping on him! Who does that?"
"Friends" Charlie cut in with a snort, "that's what you do for friends."
"He gave me advice, and it turned out okay." Harry continued on, "he was here all winter break to help me. He came to Gringotts with me and helped with the ritual.
You let me cry on you after the task, and you comforted me. You didn't just kick me out. You let me sleep on you, and you listened to me and gave me honest advice when you could have told me to fuck off."
"aw, kiddo, no." Charlie said, "I couldn't do that to you, love, I'm not going to turn you away, neither will Bill."
"I know that," Harry said sounding a bit shell shocked, "I know that."
Charlie's face softened in understanding, "that's okay, love, you're allowed to trust."
"It feels big," Harry admitted quietly, then after a moment said "I don't understand. I'm not used to caring or trusting. It feels dangerous. You're mine now. It frightens me, I'd-"
His voice seemed to catch and choke. But Charlie just seemed content to wait patiently for him to continue.
"I'd kill for you guys Charlie, to keep you guys safe. I've never felt that for anyone. You and Bill. And the twins, they taught me to swim. Did they tell you? They didn't once stare or question my scars, they didn't once laugh for my fear of water. They just goofed off until I was too busy laughing at them to be scared. They left Gryffindor for me despite knowing they'd get a howler, they set peeves on Ron for me. They had my back despite everything. And Hermione's and Neville. It means everything to me. Everything.
You're mine now, I'm not letting that go. You're all my people. And I'm not letting that go. You're family. I think. Is what family feels like Charlie?" Harry said awe and fear in his face, "it feels like... do you understand Charlie? It feels...."
Charlie nodded, "it's nothing less than complete trust and devotion," he said, a strange quality in his voice, as if knowing exactly what Harry meant, "I know," he said quietly.
"Yes," Harry said desperately, "I'd kill and die for you, I'd go up against anyone that tried to harm or hurt you guys without a single regret. Because you're mine. Not my possession-"
"But your people," Charlie finished, understanding, "family."
"Yes!" Harry breathed, slumping in relief that Charlie understood.
"That's power, Charlie. I went from having no one to having 6 people that I can trust without a shadow of a doubt. I'd burn the world down for my family. If any of you asked me to. I'd do it without a care, without regret, but I trust that you guys won't ask me to. I trust you.
It's terrifying. Is that what love is Charlie? Giving someone the power to destroy you but trusting them not too? Knowing they wouldn't even think about it. Is that love, Charlie?
"I..." Charlie hesitated as if trying to find the words, "yes. That's what love is. Love and trust, that's what makes family, darling. Love and trust. It's not who you share blood with, it's the people who have your back and care no matter what through thick and thin, who would do anything for you and vice versa."
"Family," Harry said, sounding small and awed.
"Family," Charlie said, "this is family."
"Family is more than blood", Harry said.
"Yes, your relatives are who you share blood with," Charlie explained as if he were talking about something sacred, "but your family are those you share your heart with."
"Yeah, yeah it is. Sorry to wake you." Harry said softly.
"Don't be, you didn't, I'm glad you called."
"I miss you," Harry said quietly.
"I miss you too, love", said Charlie with a yawn, "I'll see if I can get time off to come to one of your tasks. Or if I can come to visit you over the break, and Bill."
Harry beamed, snuggling down into his blankets, and trying to hide a yawn "you make good family Charlie, you and Bill. And the others. I think I like having Family, Charlie."
Charlie smiled softly, "so do you, Harry, so do you."
Harry smiled and took another long pull his hot chocolate, a yawn escaping him.
Charlie muffled his own yawn and shifted so he could lie back down and still see the mirror.
"I should let you go back to sleep," Harry said.
"You should get on that yourself," Charlie said with a tired smile as Harry drained the last of his hot chocolate and put the large mug on the shelf.
"Sleep well, Harry love, I'll get Bill to give you a hug for me when he sees you next."
Harry hummed sleepily, "night Charlie," he said before putting the mirror down and snuggling into his blankets and pillows.
Warm, full and sleepy, this time, Harry had no trouble drifted off into a thankfully, dream free sleep.
*
The following week passed in a rather frantic but well-scheduled blur.
Harry and Hermione put in a formal complaint to the Board about the unearned detentions. It was, of course, ignored, as Professor Snape had said, but they did have a copy of it to add to Rodgrip's pile of evidence against Dumbledore.
They also started working on a proposal to get the tradition of students un-housing each other disbanded. It was far too harsh a punishment and too easily abused. They didn't need such an archaic system anymore. They hadn't heard back yet. But they felt positive about it. And Harry felt better about the whole thing just by having done something.
Peeves was still causing havoc.
He got into the greenhouses again, and on Tuesday morning was flinging dragon dung around the entrance hall.
Harry was lucky enough to catch Professor Sprout tearing Peeves a new one for it.
"Peeves! this is the second tie this week!" She hollered looking extremely irate to the amusement of the snickering poltergeist who was now juggling balls of dragon dung over her head.
"its a complete waist of premium dung! At least use the cheep shit!" She finished still yelling at the top of her lungs but making no move to actually take the dragon dung back off him.
The poltergeist actually stopped juggling, letting the dung fall to the floor with a wet splat and turned to look at her. He cocked his head to the side for a moment, giving her a narrowed eyed shrewd look, then blew a raspberry at her and zoomed off.
Harry who was still lurking behind a tapestry watching had to restrain a snicker as Professor Sprout shook her head muttering about a 'waste of good dung!
Sure enough later that week when Peeves stuffed dung into all of Professor Dumbledores socks it was the cheep dung fertiliser not the expensive kind.
"You couldn't have asked him to not use dung at all?" Professor McGonagall said with an irritated yet amused huff, turning to Professor Sprout who was looking far too pleased.
"No," Professor Sprout said frankly, "he'd do it anyway, at least this time he wasted the cheap stuff instead! My venomous tentacle won't tolerate anything less that premium, the mandrakes too! That stuff is expensive."
This particular story had them all roaring with laughter Harry shared it over breakfast. But that wasn't all peeves was doing, to the Headmaster. He tossed all his brightly coloured robs into the lake one morning, set off dungbombs in his office and on his chair in the great hall. The Headmaster seemed to take a lot of it in annoyingly good cheer from what Harry had heard, but either way, the Poltergeist was causing havoc. To Harry and his friend's delight, he was causing trouble for McGonagall too, to the woman fury. Rumour had it that he had filled her office with catnip and she had missed a whole afternoon of classes.
The Gryffindors too, Harry heard were still having trouble. Peeves had taken to jumping out of behind the toilets and scaring the Gryffindors when doing their morning business. He'd also taken to putting dungbombs, somehow, into the showerheads, which were now always icy cold thanks to the house elves, Harry was pleased and touched to discover.
According to Dobby, it was not just the water they were having issues with. The common room was just dusty enough to cause sneezing but not enough to appear dirty. The sheets were all clean but had been left in closets just long enough to smell a little musty. And the issue of hot drinks going cold were getting persistent, all drinks were now either too spicy, so salty or too sweet. It had now escalated, to the puzzlement of everyone.
The Gryffindors were also finding that their meals were too salty or too spicy. Nothing concrete, but enough to be annoying and unpleasant. The deserts were all slightly cold when they were meant to be hot, and all slightly bitter.
It was nothing to complain about but enough to be unpleasant. Either way, it wasn't pleasant for Harry's ex-house and something Harry watched with a quiet, vicious satisfaction.
Especially when no mater what McGonagall or the Gryffindors did, they could not seem to work out or fix the issue.
Harry and Hermione were still using the time turner every night, occasionally Fred and George would join them and corner themselves off on once side of the chamber and make things bang, smoke and explode. Or alternatively would crow in triumph when something worked well.
Harry was still in the forest with Firenze or Hagrid most mornings at dawn. He'd join the man in his duties, and they'd share an early breakfast and tea.
When Harry wasn't in the forest with Hagrid in the mornings, he was with the centaurs, who also had taken to feeding Harry. Centaur cooking was different from what he was used to but no less delicious or filling. And it was just as well because keeping up with the centaurs when they were moving through the forest was hard work.
They had four legs and could move incredibly swiftly through the forest. Harry was improving in leaps and bounds, but he still had to work to keep up with the larger, faster beings.
He had however finally been declared by Bane, to be good enough at archery to start learning how to hunt with the heard. This did not actually involve hunting with the heard at all, not yet. But he was taught by various herd members how to track, solo and group hunting techniques and how to deal with game. He learnt about butchering and using every part of the animal. It was important not to waste anything, and to treat the animal with respect. He also learnt how to make leather.
After his early morning in the forest, he was still going for a run or a swim with his friends before a proper breakfast. His swimming was improving, and he was getting better at not freezing in the lake. He'd worked out that if he let him magic build and sit under the surface of his skin, he could keep himself warm. It was hard at first, but the more he worked on it, the better he got.
It did require a lot of energy though and often left him ravenous or rather tired afterwards. It was getting easier, though. And he thought that if he kept practising by the time he got to the task, he'd be able to keep himself warm in the freezing lake for an hour or two.
Classes were passing swiftly. McGonagall was ignoring him, and Sprout had been correct in that the Hufflepuffs were treating him like a human being again, as were the Ravenclaws. In fact, Harry had had a number of apologies, sincere ones from a number of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. So had Luna come to that, who had previously had a lot of trouble with bullying.
Really it was only the Gryffindor harassing him now and some of the Slytherins. Though the Slytherins had largely stopped bothering him since he'd befriending some of his peers and tutoring the younger years.
Except for Malfoy. Malfoy was still a pain if he caught Harry, but he rarely did these days as Harry was a master of getting around the castle unseen now.
Harry still had a meeting with Professors Babbling and Vector in the evenings, and indeed kept up the guise of detention by keeping him later after their lesson to allow him to finish homework while they did marking. They were both very pleased with his progress in their subjects. And surprised with how well he was tacking to it. It was nice to hear honest praise from his teachers.
But even with the time turner, he was getting very busy.
He'd taken to doing homework in the kitchen at lunch, and studying in the room of requirement after classes with his friends. Along with all his classes and his extra subjects, he had a lot of work to do even with the time turner. Luckily Harry and his friends were nearly always joined after school by the Slytherins now. The Slytherins were slowly becoming counted as part of their circle.
Between the Slytherins, Neville, Fred and George, as well as the assignments sent to and from a few of the pureblood's tutors it was soon proclaimed that they were well on schedule to be more than ready by the end of the year to take the planned O.W.Ls.
They were most definitely sitting Politics, Etiquette and Culture as well as Estate Management over the summer. And Harry and Hermione were hoping to do the language OWL as well if they could master enough languages. They had the help of the potions, but they'd still need to practice with the languages enough to hold a conversation, write an essay and answer questions on a passage they had read.
Harry kept meeting with his snakelets, too, in one of the lower dungeons before tea a few nights a week, to help them with their homework. Harry now had all the first and second years in his little study group, and most of the third years and the study sessions were getting kind of big and awkward in the dungeon classrooms.
After dinner, Harry went to his detentions.
He'd tried every day that week to get McGonagall to rescind her decision. But she was still stubbornly claiming that he had broken the rules and had earned the detentions.
Luckily for him, they weren't really detentions now. Which made it a bit better. It was more like having to sit in his teacher's office to do his homework, and occasionally be offered a tutor. He still didn't like it, but it was more useful, and better than real detentions. Even if it was still unfair.
Detentions with Hagrid were just business as usual in the forest. This Harry didn't have to pretend to hate it as most assumed he was nuts for spending time willingly in the Forbidden Forest, and they assumed he hated it.
But Harry really enjoyed it. He was either with Hagrid or the centaurs. Hagrid was, at Harry's request, teaching him more and more how to handle different plants and animals, in case their hunch was right and the last task was some kind of obstacle course, with different beasts in it.
As for Professor Snape... He was still harsh and strict, but he mostly left him alone. Which suited Harry just fine.
Harry had heeded the man's warning to not be caught in the dungeons. Especially when Nott had pointed out how often he was seen in the dungeons. Harry didn't want trouble from the older Slytherins, or Malfoy who still hated him. And he did not want more trouble from Professor Snape either.
Harry was careful to use the cloak, and the multitude of secret passageways he now had access to. He was very rarely caught unaware, especially with Hogwarts on his side. He wasn't sure if Professor Snape noticed that Harry was obeying his instructions, but he didn't really care. One less thing for Professor Snape to pick on was always a good thing.
Professor Snape's 'detentions', he didn't have to pretend to dread, as he was still genuinely dreading being around the man, never knowing what to expect. But Professor Snape just continued to get Harry to finish off his homework for the first half of the detention then continued with Remedial Potions in the second half.
He didn't mention their conversation at all. In fact, he almost acted as if it hadn't happened. Harry wasn't sure whether to be relieved or terrified at this new reasonable behaviour.
They had moved on from ingredients prep; showing Harry how to manage and judge the flow on magic when placing ingredients in the cauldron and stirring it.
They were slowly moving on to brewing and then on to progressively harder potions. To Harry's enormous relief. He was finally not feeling constantly like a baby or a dunderhead. It helped that he had his mother's potions books to study. They were a wealth of information and know he understood what she meant by feeling; they were invaluable. Particularly when he started going through her early potions notes and textbooks.
Harry was still anxious around the man and didn't trust him further than he could throw him (not that he was stupid enough to get that close), but the man genuinely seemed determined to actually teach him.
It was odd, but Harry would take what he could get.
It had taken him a while, but Harry was starting to get the hang of the flow of magic in potions.
Finally.
Professor Flitwick's detentions too were half finishing his homework, the other half, once his homework was done, was writing lines. Which he could easily pretend to dread and find tediously boring. But instead of just 'I will respect my betters,' or similarly expected rot; Professor Flitwick gave Harry passages out of interesting textbooks to copy. It was deceptively brilliant.
The topics he had Harry currently taking notes on were Advanced water charms (including a very strong Aguamenti charm variation that Harry thought could be used to propel one through the water;) Silent Point Casting (which Harry was getting good at) and Underwater spell casting, (which was a little more than just doing it silently to avoid mangling the incantation.)
The fun bit was that Harry could ask as many questions as he liked. The professor seemed to expect or even require it. Being expected to ask questions when he had them was a new and novel experience for Harry too. He still half expected to be hit over the head with Petunia's frying pan, but it was getting easier with the Charms Professor's constant probing and praise.
He was also expected to practice the spells as well. Professor Flitwick would often demonstrate them and was quick to praise Harry when he got it right. He had been very impressed (and surprised) with Harry's silent and rather a minimal spell casting of some of his more familiar spells. It was strange but very nice to have someone pleased with his work and be as proud of him as Professor Flitwick said he was. It was very odd. Nice. But odd.
All the work was exhausting, but it was paying off. His occlumency was slowly getting better, and in all that, Harry had managed to find time almost every day to mirror call Bill and Charlie, which was something he always looked forward to.
END NOTES:
Just felt the need to say their is nothing sexual or inappropriate between Harry and Bill or Harry and Bill. Their close, supper close, there is a strong bond there, but its not sexual or weird like that.
I just wanted to add, that for people who have never been able to trust, or have had trust broken, realising there is someone you can trust, is a big deal. Its huge, so if it seems like harry is making a big deal out of nothing just remember, he's been though very real trauma, that changes a persons perspective on things and it can make things that would seem small to your average person, seem like a big deal.