It felt good to be going back to Hogwarts on September first. Despite the fact that they had more freedom at home with all the restrictions from the war it actually felt like the opposite. Sure it was pretty similar, Harry could walk the grounds of the school just as much as he could Potter Manor. He could even just take his broom and go flying in both. But not only were the grounds of the school larger, there were also more interesting with things to do, places to see, and most importantly people to talk to. Harry loved his family, the Grangers and even the Weasleys, but when you only have those options it gets repetitive.
One part Harry and Hermione were definitely not looking forward to was sleeping apart again. Ever since the attempt on her parents' lives, Hermione had insisted on sharing a room with Harry to feel safe, and while nothing had happened between them that wasn't happening beforehand, they had quickly grown used to the others presence and losing it was going to be hard.
As soon as they arrived at the train station, each of them arriving by portkeys arranged by the ministry, Ron started scouting the Gryffindors for new talent. With Alicia and Angela having left the school now the Gryffindors Quidditch team needed a new captain. The only other people who could have had it were Harry and Katie. Harry was already a prefect so wasn't eligible to be captain and Katie just didn't have the head for strategy that Ron did so he had gotten the badge.
But the team was down two beaters and two chasers. Ginny was a shoo in spot for one of the chasers as long as she wanted it, so that left Ron looking for two beaters and another chaser while Harry and Hermione headed to the prefect's carriage. Or more accurately the prefects and professors carriage this year. All four of the heads of house, the headmaster and Charlus were on the Express this year as a safety measure. Technically neither Professor Potter nor Headmaster Greengrass were scheduled to ride the train but they had kids on the train and had volunteered to help boost the numbers.
Apparently the plan was that the professors would remain in the prefect's carriage unless they were needed. The idea was to let the students have as normal an experience as possible while taking the train to school, but at the same time they were there ready to act and not leaving the security up to chance. The prefects would police the train like normal and if anything major happened they were just a cannon blast charm away.
The new head boy and girl this year were both from Ravenclaw. They were more the Percy Weasley type of head boy and girl than last year but more hands off, they told the new prefects, that included Ginny and Colin for Gryffindor, what was expected of them and handed out a patrol schedule that was regularly timed and fair. The only issue Harry saw was that the schedule was a little too rigid. If you were too regular the trouble makers would know when to calm down. But then again the Weasley twins weren't there this year so maybe Harry was being a little too paranoid.
Soon enough Harry and Hermione were wandering down the train checking compartments looking for their friends. They found Susan and Hannah first and the two of them were keeping a compartment for them and Ron while discussing the trouble they had to go through to get their robes this year.
"Yeah I get that there was an attack but it still kinda blows that we could only get our uniforms before school and that everything else is on back order." Hannah was saying.
"It's a little frustrating." Susan agreed. "For me the worst part was Mrs Weasley. Don't get me wrong, she was nice and a professional, but that's still my boyfriend's mother taking my measurements."
"At least you weren't at ground zero for the attack." Hermione added as took an empty seat.
"Wait, you were there?" Hannah asked, surprised. The attack was public knowledge as was who the attackers were, however who was in the shop had been kept out of the papers thanks to an order from Bones to keep her people reporting it to the press. And with Madam Malkin relying so much on Mrs Weasley's help she wasn't going to risk her walking out by telling people that Ron and his friends had been in the store.
They didn't expect the information to remain secure. In fact it was now passed the point Madam Bones wanted them kept anonymous. She wanted them under the protection of Hogwarts and out of the way of most possible retaliation.
"Oh yeah we were there. Hermione was the one who dueled Mrs Malfoy, Ron even took on Lucius and had the man pinned." Harry said a little excitedly. He was kinda proud of what Ron and Hermione had done.
"Damn. Hey Susan, how come you weren't bragging about what Ron did?" Hannah asked, knowing that Ron was one of her best friends' favourite topics of conversation recently.
"Couldn't, it comes under my promise to Auntie Amelia to not talk about DMLE stuff I learn about."
"So now I know who was there. I assume that it was another attempt on your life, Hermione?" Hannah asked. With the fake death of Hermione's father so widely reported as part of the trap everyone knew about the Malfoy's targeting Hermione. It was why Director Bones wanted who was at Madam Malkins kept quiet until today when Hermione was in Hogwarts, she didn't want some screw up with a screw loose to conclude that they could make everything a little safer by offing Hermione and reduce the number of attacks.
It was a ridiculous idea but all it would take is three or four people to be whipped up into a frenzy to cause real problems. From letter bombs to random attacks. Honestly it was a god send that the Malfoy's wanted to kill Hermione in person when you considered just how easy cursed mail could be sent to an unprepared muggleborn.
"Yeah. And they learned that I won't be an easy target. Uncle Charlus almost killed Bellatrix Lestrange while I was dueling Narcissa Malfoy. Then they all ran." Hermione answered.
"It's going to be weird not having Malfoy and Parkinson in the school. I mean in a good way. They were always staring at me and she was always saying things about how ugly I am under her breath. It will be nice not to have that, but weird." Hannah said.
"What about Crabbe and Goyle? I haven't seen them on the train yet." Harry asked.
"Oh they are here. I saw them through the window getting on the train. They looked depressed." Susan said.
"No surprise there. Draco was their friend and from their perspective he was off fighting for the false lord. Now they have been confronted by the shocking reality of what happens to terrorists" Harry said only for Hermione to playfully shove him for his use of the word shocking.
It wasn't long after that that Ron came and joined them, shrugging off his dragon leather coat and giving Susan a quick kiss before sitting next to her. He had just sat down when Hannah asked him about the coat despite the warm weather.
Ron shrugged. "Draco and Pansy weren't the only baby death eaters. If I was gonna be walking the train by myself I wasn't going without full body length dragon leather when I had the choice." and the fact that Ron was wearing his, had Harry and Hermione both decide to wear theirs when they did their prefect rounds.
"So captain, did you find anyone for the team?" Harry asked genuinely curious as to who his team mates would be this year.
"A few, Ginny is practically threatening to leak all my childhood secrets if she isn't on the team as a full member this year and her friend Demelza Robins is definitely interested as is Dean from our year. All of them want to play chaser. Still looking for beaters, Fred and George have left some big shoes to fill there."
Hermione giggled for a second and just said. "Clown shoes." Which only Harry understood as while the idea of a clown was universal the caricature with massively over sized shoes was distinctly muggle in origin.
The whole trip was pretty uneventful. There was a little tension when on their prefect rounds Harry and Hermione checked on a compartment that was full of Pansy and Draco's friends but they weren't doing anything against the rules and they didn't seem to be willing to start anything on the train so it was nothing but angry glaring and and what few words were exchanged were done in distinctly unfriendly tones.
The train pulled into the station at its normal time and few of the students were surprised to see that there had been professors on the train. Harry saw Headmaster Greengrass having a conversation with Hagrid before he climbed into the lead carriage with the heads of house. Soon enough the first years were off to cross the lake and everyone else was climbing into the carriages.
After everyone was in the castle, it was time to sort the first years. "God, look at the midgets. We were never that small were we?" Ron said as the first if the new students were sorted into Ravenclaw.
"I wouldn't let Professor Flitwick hear you use that word." Hermione warned him. "And of course we were just as small our first year."
Ron's face went pale and his ears red as he thought about what their half goblin professor might think of the word midget. "Uh yeah. Good call. So Harry, when do you think we should schedule the Quidditch tryouts?" Ron quickly changed the subject.
The first years were sorted and the feast was devoured and only then did Headmaster Greengrass stand to address everyone. "To our new friends, welcome and to our old friends, welcome back to another year at Hogwarts. I have a few start of year notices for everyone. Now over the summer I have reviewed the list of banned items at the school and have found that some of the items were unfairly added for the wrong reasons and that others were banned for good reasons but that the ban was harsh. As of now things like mundane stationery are no longer banned and things like fanged Frisbees are now permissible for use out on the grounds and not in the castle. A full list of restricted items can be found on your house notice boards."
"I also need to tell the first years that the forest on the grounds is completely out of bounds without a professor. There are dangerous magical animals and old magic in the forest that can and will kill you if you don't know what you are doing. Anyone: students, professors, or other members of staff who tell you otherwise isn't to be listened to."
"Now my next announcement is the big one, some of you older students may have noticed on your way up to the castle if you happened to have looked the right way, a new building on the grounds. Over the holidays I had a number of meetings with the people who run the shops in Hogsmeade. They didn't like that we stopped allowing students to visit the village for safety reasons. Their businesses relied on the visiting students. Now we can't let students visit the village until the civil war in magical Britain ends so we have come up with a new solution. The new Hogsmeade exchange will stock items from the Hogsmeade shops. It will be open every weekend and due to the fact that students can visit it without leaving the school it will be open to all years including first and second years who would normally need to wait until their third year to visit the village."
"Now off to bed with you. First years your house prefects will show you the way.
There was a wave of excitement from the students as they stood up and started filing towards their common rooms. Last year they had tried to do a few things but it hadn't worked out. It seems over the summer that Headmaster Greengrass had taken the time to find a solution that would work. It would be nice to be able to pop down any weekend and get what he wanted. And since it would be there every weekend it wasn't going to be incredibly crowded like it was in the shops on Hogsmeade weekends.
He and Hermione hung back and watched the first years in case any of them got separated as Ginny and Colin led them up to the common room.
"So what do you think of the new shop idea?" Harry asked Hermione as they walked.
"It sounds good. A lot of schools have a school shop and it's such a simple solution. I just hope that they still try and do dances this year. It was such a shame the valentines date got interrupted last year.
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At breakfast the next morning both Harry and Hermione looked like they hadn't gotten much sleep and both of them went straight for the coffee. They had gotten used to sleeping as a pair and lack of the other had kept them both from getting comfortable. Ron was enjoying having a laugh at the two of them's expense but Hermione was too busy dozing on Harry's shoulder and Harry was too focused on his coffee to care.
For the first time since their first year the first day of school was a Monday. However they still didn't need to run off to class. Sixth year students had to have a meeting with their heads of house where they chose what subjects they would continue on with. So that meeting took the place of the first lesson slot of the day.
It was easy for someone like Ron who knew exactly what he wanted to do for his career, he was just going to choose the subjects that he needed to be an Auror. For Harry and Hermione whose ideas were less defined it was harder. Once the coffee kicked in they joined in the conversations with the rest of the sixth year's who were animatedly discussing their plans
"Well I'm definitely keeping going with Herbology, but my gran wants me to take Transfiguration and I don't think professor McGonagall will let me." Neville said as he moved some of his breakfast around on his plate without eating it.
"No offence Nev but screw your gran. It's your life. You have to live it for you. Take the charms class. You are great at charms and charms are useful for everything." Lavender said a little fire in her voice.
"Gran thinks charms are a soft option." Neville said.
"Nev, Lav may be blunt but she is right. Do you want to try and force Transfiguration and royally bugger it up and also be stuck with only OWL charms, or do you want to get a real NEWT in charms that you can actually use for the rest of your life?" Pavarti asked.
"What about your other classes, don't you need to take at least three?" Harry asked.
"Well as surprising as it is, I was thinking about potions. I got so much better after Professor Potter took over. I want to try and work on some types of nutrient potions for plants to help them grow faster." Neville admitted.
"Oh you should look into something muggles do called hydroponics. They grow some plants like lettuce without any soil. They are just floating on a platform with their roots in nutrient ritch water." Hermione said.
"They do what now?" Harry asked before anyone else could. He hadn't heard about this before.
"Yeah it's a thing. It has some real benefits. One of my teachers in primary school had us do experiments growing cress with just water and water with some fertiliser in it to demonstrate how plants need nutrients and some of us got confused about how any plant can grow without dirt and she explained it to us." Hermione explained. "And if you're going to make a potion to help plants, maybe that method would be useful."
Neville looked thoughtful for a moment before saying. "Sounds interesting but more like something to experiment with after I get my N.E.W.T. What about you, Hermione, what subjects are you interested in?"
"Arithmancy, Runes, Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, and Defence against the Dark Arts. I'm still debating on if I should also take Herbology."
"What about you Harry? Lavender asked.
"Charms, Transfiguration, Defence, Runes, and Potions. I'm not sure what I want to do full time after school."
"I thought you wanted to be a healer, what with your whole magic arms and legs thing?" Pavarti asked.
"Nah too much stress. If I muck up an arm or a leg the worst that happens is I have to start again. I don't want to have people's lives depending on me to make the right call every day of my life."
"I don't know mate, with how often you have ended up in a hospital bed you sort of owe the healers a helping hand." Ron teased his best mate.
"I have a cupboard full of prosthetic ones in my office at St Mungo's. They can help themselves."
"How is it going to work now you're back in school? You know the whole prosthetic thing?" Lavender asked as professor McGonagall shuffled past, handing out timetables to the other years.
"They arranged it with Headmaster Greengrass. Unless it's an emergency I will pick one weekend a month to go and work at St Mungo's. Letting me pick the weekend lets me move it around homework and Quidditch assignments. If an emergency of some type pops up, something that shouldn't happen, I will go there to deal with the emergency and get back as soon as I can but I may get an extension on homework deadlines and might have to resit tests. As our tests are all in-school tests this year it shouldn't be a problem."
Almost as though they were waiting for the word problem the mail owls chose that exact moment to flood the hall. The older students like Harry and his mates ignored it, having seen the spectacle about a thousand times before. That was until a letter was dropped in front of Hermione, then a second, and a third, more and more kept being dropped in front of her and Harry.
"I guess the story of what happened at Madam Malkin's is out." Hermione said with a put upon sigh.
Harry was already casting detection charms looking for all the envelopes that had any kind of magic on them indicating that they were more than a letter and was surprised to find there were none. All of them were just plain letters. That didn't mean Hermione should actually read them just that doing so wasn't going to result in a trip to the hospital wing.
"Surprisingly it's all clear, no magical traps at all." Harry said
"Yeah the D.M.L.E do checks on our mail now remember, they don't read it but they check for traps and I think Headmaster Greengrass altered the wards to keep howlers out of the castle." Hermione reminded him. "Still it was a good idea to check."
"What do you want to do with all that? There is bound to be a lot of hate mail in there." Ron said with a nod at the pile of letters that was still having the occasional letter added to it.
"Part of me wants to just burn it all but what if there are some nice letters in there I might want?" Hermione asked.
"If you really want to, I will help you go through them. However, do you really think it's worth it? You know what people are like. It's 'angry people' who write letters the most. Ninety percent of the letters are going to be from angry people trying to hurt your feelings. Are a few letters of encouragement worth putting yourself through that? The ones addressed to just me I'm just going to burn." Harry said. He wanted to include the ones addressed to both him and Hermione in his decision to burn them but Hermione had the right to read them if she decided to.
Hermione took a deep breath and slowly let it out both as a way to keep herself calm and as a way to give herself a few moments to think. "Let's just burn them. You're right it's not worth reading all the hate just to find a few nice letters. It's a pity there isn't a spell to sort out the hate mail from the rest."
"Maybe you can try and make one one day. I'm sure a lot of famous witches and wizards would love a spell like that. And it could even be useful for the Ministry to do quick opinion polls. Announce a policy and then sort the mail into piles and see how many people are calling you an out of touch fool who needs to resign. Or whatever it is people actually say to politicians they don't like." Harry suggested. He was only half joking while he didn't know if such a charm was possible, Hermione focusing on finding out would be a good distraction from people sending them hate mail.
The bell for end of breakfast went off and everyone expected the sixth year and the heads of year, filed out. Professor McGonagall came and sat at the table a little down from the sixth years and after dropping a stack of paperwork on the now spotlessly clean table she started calling up the Gryffindors in alphabetical order. That meant Lavender, who was B for Brown, had the dubious honour of going first. They were well used to this order by now and knew Hermione was going to be third and Harry seventh after Pavarti. So there wasn't enough time for them to dispose of the unwanted mail before their individual meetings.
Lavender and Professor McGonagall talked through the girl's grades and what classes she qualified for while everyone else pretended not to be listening in. It wasn't that they wanted to invade Lavender's privacy, it was more curiosity at just what was going to happen to them in a few minutes. Lavender decided on Charms, Astronomy, and Divination. Professor McGonagall pushed Lavender to take one more class. "You should probably take one more practical class. You are a more than talented enough student to take four classes. From your grades I would suggest either Herbology or Transfiguration." Lavender thought for a minute and accepted Transfiguration. Then Professor McGonagall waved her wand over a blank timetable and Lavender's schedule for the rest of the year was set.
That was pretty much how all the meetings went. On her turn Hermione was pretty much cleared for every Newt class except Divination and Muggle studies and Hermione selected Arithmancy, Runes, Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, and Defence against the Dark Arts just like she had told everyone earlier.
Harry had to wait for quite a bit for his turn, during which Neville had his turn and Professor McGonagall revealed that the reason that Neville's Gran didn't like Charms was because she herself hadn't actually managed to pass her Charms owl. And Professor McGonagall agreed that Charms was a much better fit for Neville even saying she would write Neville's Gran and give her an ear full.
Harry's turn was a lot like Hermione's in that he had all the qualifications needed to do the subjects he wanted to do. Charms, Transfiguration, Defence, Runes, and Potions. Harry may not have solid plans for his long term Career yet but his N.E.W.T.s would be a strong foundation for a lot of careers he could pursue in the future. Professor McGonagall made up his timetable and Harry had to get out of the way so that their head of year could speak to Dean.
They had to wait around for Ron who as always was the last student when the list was alphabetical. Ron needed five Newts if he was going to have any hope of being an Auror and he went with Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Defence against the Dark Arts, and after a quick chat with Susan who with a last name beginning with B had her timetable a while before chose Herbology. Apparently the ability to spot toxic and dangerous plants was surprisingly useful as dark wizards often got creative.
When Harry compared his timetable with Hermione's and Ron's they were incredibly similar. Hermione was in all of his classes and Ron, and by extension Susan, were in all of his except runes. Luckily they had nothing for the first double period that day so there was no need to rush off.
The idea of a nap in the common room after their restless night appeared to both Harry and Hermione and Ron invited Susan along as well. They disposed of the letters in the common room fireplace and Harry and Hermione tried to cuddle up for a nap. Unfortunately the coffee they had drank with breakfast had other ideas and it looked like and it looked like the the start of their two Nastily Exhausting years at Hogwarts were going to live up to their name.