In a lot of ways, Harry considered what he was experiencing as a calm before an upcoming storm. He and the student body of Hogwarts had returned from winter break without much fanfare. Classes continued as normal, and Harry split his extra time between his training and prefect duties looking for more clues as to the location of Ravenclaw's lost Diadem. The ever-present thought that he wasn't doing ENOUGH roiled through Harry's brain, but he'd found ways to quiet it down. For one, he'd taken to doing his rounds through the castle alongside one of his girlfriends, or he supposed, his fiancee's now. The camaraderie and love and affection he felt for them was capable of pulling him out of his deepest funks, and the girls had little issue reminding him of why he kept fighting.
Talks of the future were common during those times. Something he was fairly certain was Susan's idea initially. The girls would start by mentioning what they would do after the war was over. It was always phrased the same, never a question that the war would end, and that it would end in their victory, with all of them alive and well. Then they'd discuss what would happen after.
Susan started everything with talks of their family after Hogwarts. About how she wanted to have Harry's first child, so they would be the older sibling to all the others. That they could lead by example, and be a good big brother or sister to all of their siblings. She talked about her ideas for work, about how she might want to take over for McGonagall and teach Transfiguration someday, but probably not until the kids were ready for Hogwarts. Otherwise, she mostly wanted to just be a mom, to surround herself with family.
Luna talked about her dreams of continuing studies of Magizoology, how she'd lead expeditions to all kinds of fun and exciting places to see new creatures that had never been discovered. Her eyes glistened and twinkled as she also considered maybe taking some lessons from the Muggle World, attending a muggle university to learn how they studied zoology, and applying their concepts to the magical world. Perhaps Luna would be the first to discover if natural selection and the theory of evolution truly applied to magical creatures the same way it did to non-magical ones, or if magic had some specific guiding hand in shaping the creatures that muggles don't know about. She had her own dreams of children too, but wanted only one or two. She had grown up with a small family, just herself, her mother, and her father, and while Harry would have a large family inherently, she had no desires to make it much larger. A son or daughter to call her own and carry on the Lovegood name would be enough for her, provided that they were happy and healthy, that was all that mattered.
Daphne dreamed big. She spoke of forcing Snape to take her on as an apprentice following their graduation, so she could learn everything she could from the potions master, earning a mastery and continuing her education beyond. She listed a half dozen notable potioneers of their time, and how she wanted to pick their brains and learn everything she could to become the premier potion mistress of Britain, if not all of Europe, if not the entire world. She wanted nothing less than to cure every disease known to man, and create a world in which no one ever need be sick again. Harry attempted to let her know such a dream seemed untenable, and she said she was well aware, but it didn't matter. If she allowed herself to dream small, she would never achieve what she was truly capable of. She'd fight and kick and scream as hard as she needed to to achieve everything she wanted in life, and even if she couldn't achieve all of her dreams, it would be very apparent it wasn't for lack of trying. She'd be the best potioneer, the most wonderful wife, and an outstanding mother, and still look good doing it. She shot him a wink when she said that, and Harry couldn't help but laugh.
Fleur spoke of her ambitions to perhaps work as an ambassador, working to overcome the British sense of isolationism that, in her mind, was at least part of the reason for Voldemort's rise. She spoke of working closely with the ICW, about how her time as a TriWizard Champion already gave her an in, and she mentioned how her relationship with Harry, who was someone of note in Britain, gave her an additional edge. More personal to her though, she spoke of wanting children of her own. As many as were possible, but her Veela body was certainly the limiting factor. Her mother having two children was seen as a rarity among Veela, those who managed to have children usually only had one, and only one person since here grandmother had been born had managed to have three. Fleur hoped that her mother's higher than average fertility for a Veela was a genetic trait, one she and her sister could pass on to perhaps save the diminishing Veela population. Was it perhaps somewhat preservationist? Perhaps, but Fleur would love her children regardless, she wanted as many as she could have, not only for the sake of her people, but also so she could provide them with as much love as possible.
Padma spoke of wanting to learn from Andromeda. She'd had a longstanding love and skill for charms, and had long thought about leveraging those skills to become an enchanter. Getting to really speak to her future mother-in-law about her chosen profession though had wound her up, and she wanted to dive into that future full force. She'd even joked about making a broom with a ride so smooth that Susan wouldn't get sick on it, which earned a chuckle from her and Harry. Padma also spoke of a family, expressing her desire for children, and speaking on how she was likely to have twins of her own, since they ran in her family. She herself only intended to have the one child, or one set should it be twins. There were no concerns about the Patil line dying out as Susan or Daphne or Luna may need to worry about, as not only could her sister pass it on, but they have a number of cousins who are all quite capable. As Lady Black, she did have a duty to pass on that name, but that wasn't something she was particularly concerned about. She wanted to be a mother eventually, and she knew Harry would provide.
Hermione though… well few could ever dare to dream as big as Hermione did. There was no preamble about things she might do. There was no maybe, only a brash determinism that told Harry without a doubt that she would have been just as at home with the Lions of Gryffindor as she did with the Eagles of Ravenclaw. Hermione stated that she would eventually find herself as the Minister of Magic, a title she'd use to push for expanded equality for muggleborns. She'd introduce sweeping legislation that brought the Wizarding World into the 21st century, making everyone fully equal under the law, and expanding the wizarding parliament to include more than just the same old families that have ruled it for centuries. Harry admired her tenacity, that unwavering belief in herself and her cause, and couldn't help but wish he felt so strongly.
At the end of the day, he wasn't as sure of their victory. He'd fight tooth and nail for it, give his life if necessary so that way everyone could live in a world free of Voldemort's tyranny, but he wasn't as convinced as the girls seemed to be about the fact that they would succeed.
In many ways, Harry blamed that on what he knew about Tom Riddle. He'd taken the time to research what he could about the boy when he was at Hogwarts, from those who could tell him about him. The ghosts were the most helpful in that regard, with Moaning Myrtle and the Bloody Baron providing more than anyone else. Myrtle spoke with a first-hand account about the boy she'd had a crush on. The strapping ambitious slytherin half-blood who sat atop the academic throne, a wizard without peer in his age group who seemed so dreadfully alone. She'd watched from afar with her schoolgirl crush, hoping to perhaps hear Tom speaking to a friend about what kind of girl he liked, but found that Tom seemed to have none. He spoke to housemates on occasion, but there was no warmth or camaraderie, his conversations were polite at best and transactional at worst. The Bloody Baron confirmed this as much. Tom Riddle was a matter of pride for Slytherin house, although to say they were responsible for his creation was false. Tom Riddle would have been who he was regardless of his house, because outside of an inspiration in Slytherin's ambition, his house didn't "support" his rise. He existed independent of it. It couldn't support him, and it couldn't hinder him, because he wouldn't allow it to do either. He effectively isolated himself, taking the bare minimum from those around him.
Harry couldn't help but wonder what would drive him to such a thing. He'd spoken with Dumbledore more than once about who Tom Riddle was beforehand, how much like Harry, he'd been an orphan, although instead of being raised by a family member, he'd instead been in an orphanage. Said orphanage had apparently been rather abusive to him, with the older kids bullying him for his strangeness, and the staff either being unwilling or incapable of doing anything for him. Given the fact that this was an orphanage during the Great Depression, Harry imagined it was more the latter, as funding was so limited.
Harry found many similarities between them, as many were quick to point out. Their shared histories as orphans, as bright students, as parseltongues. Even their wands were two halves of the same whole, as Ollivander had told him in the past. One phoenix providing two feathers to be the cores for each of their wands. To Harry, it seemed, the only differences between him and Voldemort at the foundational level was Harry's desire to make friends. Harry thought back to his being dropped off at King's Cross before his first year. Vernon and Petunia had simply left him at the front door to the station before driving off with hopes of never seeing him again. Had Tom Riddle been in his place, Harry wondered if the boy would have chosen to stew in that hatred, to refuse the assistance of the nice bushy-haired girl and her family and instead figure everything out for himself.
To that end, Harry imagined he owed much to Hermione, as though he hadn't before. If she hadn't come into his life, would Harry have been a second Tom Riddle? He'd hope not, he'd hope that even if Hermione hadn't found him at the station, he would have still wanted to make friends, would have wanted to do well and succeed. He'd made his goal clear in his mind that day, he would live in spite of the Dursleys, not because of them, and perhaps that was it. Tom Riddle had made his choice to live because of his tormentors, to make the world feel his pain, while Harry wanted to live such that no one would ever feel a pain like his again.
February was well on it's way as Harry sat in the Sphinx Club room. He was working on a homework assignment from Charms, an essay that Flitwick had requested on possible alternate uses for the packing charm beyond merely packing up for a trip. Harry had been pondering on if a packing charm could be used to organize a library, discussing with Hermione and Padma if such a thing would be possible.
"I suppose I can't see a reason why it couldn't." Hermione muttered as she chewed lightly on the edge of her quill, a habit she had when in deep thought. "The packing charm works on defining a container and its contents, I can't think of a reason that it wouldn't accept a bookshelf when a box seems to work just fine."
"There's the issue of organization though, the packing charm prioritizes space efficiency over anything else, would it be able to differentiate the contents of a book to properly organize a shelf?" Padma countered, as she glanced over the section in the Great Book of Spells on the charm.
"It seems capable of putting like with like in regards to clothing." Harry pointed out, referring to a moving diagram in the book. "Even differentiating between a dress shirt and a more casual one and putting them in different sections. Surely it's pulling on the caster's contextual thoughts at least a little bit."
Padma nodded a bit at that, causing Hermione to speak up. "Then if you are aware of the content of the books it might be able to sort by genre, and perhaps could even put books in a series together, but it might not be able to order them properly. I'm not certain there's any information on if it can distinguish a set order."
"Well, we could test it." Harry suggested, moving over to one of the small bookshelves in the Sphinx Club room, which had Susan and Neville sitting next to it, going over some notes on their Herbology class. "Sorry guys, can you move aside for a second? We need to test something." Harry asked, looking to his fiancee and best friend.
"Not a problem Harry, honestly, I kinda want to see if this works as well, it'd be really interesting to see if it could order seed packets as well, that'd save me some time in the garden." Neville said, as he picked up his book and moved to another section.
"That's a good shout, honestly." Susan said, as she moved as well. "I wouldn't have thought of that." She kissed Harry briefly on the cheek as she moved past him.
Harry pulled the books off of the shelf, leaving it empty with the stack of twenty books on the floor. With a wave of his wand and incantation, he cast the packing charm, and sure enough the books slotted into place, filling the shelf. He gazed in closer, checking the position of the tomes. "Well, it seems like it was capable of discerning genre, although it has a weird way of sorting within groups though, it seems like it prefers putting the largest tome first, then moving down until the smallest one. These aren't in order by number or anything, just physical size."
Hermione made a few notes, before looking over them. "More than that, it seems to prefer the size in width and height over depth. See how this larger charms tome is placed before this one despite this one having more pages?" Hermione wondered aloud. "I wonder if it's a spacial volume thing, I'd have to do some measurements to see if the larger width and height overcompensate the extra depth of the longer book."
Discussions on what this meant overtook the group for a moment, before the door to the Sphinx Club room opened itself, as Sirius, Remus, Flitwick, and McGonagall entered the room, somber looks on their faces.
"Hello, professors… is something wrong?" Harry asked as he looked over the quartet. Seeing them together wasn't uncommon. Aside from Sirius, Remus, and Flitwick being Harry's specific instructors for dueling and combat, McGonagall usually sat with them as well, Flitwick being her very close friend, and her still having some degree of affection for her former students.
"There has been… an incident that we believe is best known to you immediately, instead of waiting to hear it at breakfast tomorrow." McGonagall said, her tone not as strict as it normally was, although equally as tense. "There has been… an escape from Azkaban, a large one. Many of Voldemort's followers have been freed."
Harry could feel his blood run cold, as Hermione and Padma came up to him, grabbing his hands to comfort him. Hannah could be seen doing the same to Neville.
"Bellatrix LeStrange, Barty Crouch Jr, and Peter Pettigrew all escaped, among others." Sirius said, a frustrated anger in his tone. Harry could feel it burning inside him too. He'd put Barty in Azkaban himself, and Peter had been the one to betray his parents, the thought of those… monsters being free sickened him greatly.
Neville paled at Bellatrix's name, and Harry could sympathise. As personal as Peter was to Harry, Bellatrix was that to Neville. She'd tortured his parents into the barely their husks they were now, she and Barty were largely why Neville didn't have parents.
"We know you all are… far closer to this war than we would otherwise want you to be." McGonagall said, choosing her words carefully. "Were it up to me, your biggest concerns would be your upcoming OWLs, but such isn't the case."
"He's getting bolder, and we can only hope that this isn't a prelude to something even bigger." Sirius said, sighing. "Come to us if you need anything, support, whatever we can provide. Harry's unfortunately on the front lines of this thing, but you are his support system, and that unfortunately means you're in this as well."
"I… suspect some of the Slytherin students may be emboldened by this. We… may discuss moving Ms. Davis and the Greengrass sisters from the Slytherin dorms if the situation becomes worse." Remus spoke, a concerned look on his face. "Such an action would be drastic, but… perhaps necessary."
Harry simply nodded, unsure of what else to do. It seemed as though things were coming to a head, and he could only guess what the end of this looked like. He only hoped that when the dust settled, he and his friends would live to see a beautiful world on the other side.