When he woke up, he knew the fast-fading dream had not been his own.
There was a certain feeling, to a Voldemort dream. A slick, oily sensation, much like the feel of foreign magic stuck to his own. But more than that, it was the same endless corridor with the same locked door. His head ached even as he shook it off, but he already knew he wasn't going to tell anyone. Especially not Sirius. No point in worrying him right before they said goodbye.
Harry found out about the whole boggart debacle once he made it downstairs. Guilt squirmed in his stomach — apparently, it had initially appeared as Bill's dead body, and since the curse-breaker was up in Harry's room, Mrs Weasley hadn't realised it was a boggart at first. But it wasn't his fault Bill was upstairs, and they'd all sorted it in the end. Mrs Weasley was fine, if a little pale.
It certainly didn't stop her shouting up and down the stairs all morning, herding her children through the pre-Hogwarts routine. Everyone had given up trying to close the drapes on Mrs Black, and after stealing some breakfast Harry avoided the chaos the best he could — his trunk was packed, Hedwig's empty cage resting on top of it, and she would meet him at school once she'd retrieved his owl-order of school books.
"Alright, pup?" Sirius snuck in, wincing from the volume of the chaos in the hall. "You about ready?"
"As I'll ever be," he confirmed. "The others aren't, I take it."
Sirius gave him a lopsided grin. "What gave you that idea?" He snickered, shaking his head. "Y'know, I thought about coming with you — as Padfoot, of course. But Moony pointed out that bloody Wormtail has probably given all our secrets away to his master," he sneered viciously. "Last thing I need is to be recognised by Death Eaters. So, ah, I'll have to say goodbye here."
Harry strode across the room, hugging him tight. "I wish you could come see me off." Every year, he watched kids hugging their parents before boarding the train, heart aching with envy. The Weasleys just weren't the same as having people there only for him.
"One day," Sirius promised, holding him close. "Still two more goes after this one. Plenty of time to clear my name."
Harry hoped they could manage it. "Are you going back to Seren Du?" He felt Sirius nod.
"Soon as the house has cleared out," he confirmed. "Reckon I can get at least a couple of hours of sunshine. Moony's going to tell everyone I'm sulking in my room when they get back from dropping you off."
"Good." Harry hated the idea of leaving him, but at least it would give him the chance to get out of the house. "I'll get the mirror back from Draco and send it through Snape as soon as I can."
"Sounds good. You look after yourself, alright? I'm not just talking about Dumbledore." Sirius sighed, leaning his chin against Harry's forehead. "I wish you didn't have quite so much on your shoulders, pup. I hope you have a nice, quiet year, but I feel like that's asking far too much. So all I can say is; study hard, fly well, make time for your friends, and definitely make time for your boyfriend." His smile pressed to Harry's hair. "Keep working on your animagus transformation, I bet you'll have made loads of progress by Christmas."
Harry had hardly had any free time to work on the magic since leaving Seren Du, and he was keen to properly get back to it. "You'll look after yourself too, yeah? There's enough people around that you shouldn't be alone when the cold gets bad. As long as you tell someone," he said pointedly, pulling back to look his godfather in the eye. "Bill, or Charlie, or even Tonks. She seems alright."
"Yeah, she's a good one. Course, with Andi as her mum, she wouldn't be anything less." Sirius was dodging the subject, and Harry narrowed his eyes until the man sighed. "Fine. I'll tell people, if they're around. I'm not nearly as bad as I was last year, though."
That was true, but also he was daft if he thought Harry didn't see how the ghosts of Azkaban could drown him some days.
"I don't think I'll make it through the whole school year without tipping Dumbledore off," Harry confessed quietly. "Especially not exams. I'm not sabotaging myself on those." His OWLs were important, and if he'd made it that far without the headmaster realising at least some of the truth, he probably wouldn't make it much further.
"Do what you can. And remember, you're not alone." Sirius ruffled his hair. "You've got all of us here willing to help, and all your friends at school. Bill's working on the scar situation. Dumbledore needs you, pup. Whatever his plans are, he can't do anything to you, not if he wants to see Voldemort defeated." His face grew serious for a moment. "And if he puts those blockers and compulsions back on you, we will notice, and we will fix it. I promise."
Had his deepest fears been that transparent? A cold sweat gathered on the back of his neck every time he thought about being left to Dumbledore's mercy, being shaped and brainwashed with magic and sent back to the 'right path' as a prisoner in his own body while his friends watched on, oblivious.
Before Harry could say anything, Mrs Weasley screeched up the stairs for them all to gather before they would be late. Harry hugged Sirius tight. "I love you," he murmured. "I'll see you at Christmas. And talk to you on the mirror."
"As often as you need me," Sirius vowed, smiling. "I love you too, pup. Give 'em hell for me, yeah?" He winked, and Harry was laughing as he left his room, jogging downstairs while Sirius levitated his trunk for him. The whole entourage was crammed in the entrance hall, waiting — the school-age Weasley kids, Mr and Mrs Weasley, Moody, and Remus. Tonks was waiting elsewhere, as Harry discovered when Mrs Weasley practically forced him out the door. With one last wave to Sirius, he was off.
.-.-.
Getting everyone safely and discreetly to the platform — at least, as discreetly as possible when one person was Harry Potter and the rest had hair like traffic cones — was quite an ordeal, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief when he was finally on the train.
"Ron and I are supposed to go to the prefect carriage," Hermione declared, once the twins had disappeared to find Lee. Harry shrugged. That was fine by him.
"Cool. Ginny?" He gestured down the train, and she led the way without even glancing back at Ron and Hermione, checking each compartment for familiar faces. To Harry's delight, they found Neville also wandering the train — and then found Luna in a compartment by herself.
"Oh, good; I was hoping you'd find me," she said by way of greeting, beaming at Ginny.
"Hi, Luna," Harry greeted cheerfully, bemused by the strange glasses resting on the girl's face, a copy of the Quibbler upside-down in her hand.
There was a brief awkward moment as Ginny squeezed too close past Neville to go sit with Luna, but they managed to get settled with their trunks up in the luggage rack just as the train sped out of central London.
"How was the rest of your summer?" Neville asked, hazel eyes sympathetic. Harry shrugged.
"Oh, y'know. Ups and downs." He'd had a little contact with Neville while at Grimmauld, but only through tacking paragraphs on the end of Ginny's letters to the other Gryffindor.
To Harry's surprise, there was a knock on the door, and it slid open to reveal Susan Bones' smiling face. "There you are! I've been looking for you since I saw Ron Weasley go into the prefect carriage." She screwed up her nose to show what she thought of that decision, and Harry laughed.
"I would've thought you'd be in there with them." Susan was a shoe-in for prefect, he'd thought.
"Nah, Dumbledore knows he can't control me. Hannah and Ernie got the badges," she explained. "Of course, he can't control them either, but he doesn't know that." She winked. "I'll let them have their romantic corridor patrols together; I'm far too busy this year."
Harry was glad there was someone else who didn't care about being passed over for prefect, shifting over to make room for her so she could shut the door properly.
"How's it all going? I have the notes for you, by the way." The enormous stack of parchment with all his notes on the laws Susan had asked him to look at was safely in his trunk, where it had been since he'd left Seren Du. The Hufflepuff's face lit up.
"Brilliant. It's going well, actually; everyone's been way more helpful than I anticipated. Of course, there's only so much I can do at this stage — but you keep assuring me you've got my roadblocks handled," she teased.
"One at a time, I'll get to them," he joked in reply — just a controlling headmaster and a Dark Lord to do away with, nothing major.
"Good lad." Her smile dropped, and she rested her hand on Harry's arm for a moment. "My aunt told me about what happened to your cousin. I'm so sorry, Harry."
A lump rose in Harry's throat, and he cleared his throat. "Thanks. It— yeah, it wasn't great. I just can't believe a dementor actually got that far."
Susan's face darkened. "Aunt Amelia's furious. Fudge and Scrimgeour — he's the head of the aurors — keep telling her it was just a rogue dementor, that there's no need to look into it now it's been contained. As if a rogue dementor would get that far and only Kiss one person on the way." Her mouth set in a grim line. "I wish there was more we could do to get justice for you."
"Knowing your aunt even tried is help enough," Harry assured — even if the rest of the Ministry was corrupt as hell, it was nice to know he had an ally in Amelia Bones.
The atmosphere brightened when another knock on the door heralded Lavender and Parvati, who stayed for a while to talk to Harry and Ginny about their summer in India with Parvati's family. Susan left, but Anthony Goldstein swung by with Michael Corner, whose presence had Ginny blushing and Neville's jaw clenched painfully tight. Blaise and Daphne even stopped in briefly; in fact, the only one of the heirs group who didn't make an appearance was Cassius. Something that had the worry in Harry's stomach growing sharper — if he didn't know that Draco had written to the older boy regularly throughout the summer, he'd wonder if Cassius was even on the train.
They had obviously been side-tracked on the way back from the prefects meeting — or perhaps just hadn't been keen to find Harry again, which was fine by him — as when Ron and Hermione found them, Hannah and Ernie were in the compartment, along with Sullivan Fawley who was deep in conversation with Luna and Ginny about something. "Where are we supposed to sit?" Hermione asked, dragging her trunk along behind her. Harry wondered why she hadn't shrunk it yet.
He shrugged. "Sorry, we're a bit full in here. Maybe there's room in one of the other compartments?"
Ron tried to stare the group down, but he was no match for Ernie's deadeye expression, and he broke away first, flushing angrily. "Come on, 'Mione, let's find somewhere quieter," he muttered, already turning away. Hermione huffed, shutting the door hard in her wake.
There was a beat of silence, then Hannah giggled.
"You're at that point, then, are you?" she asked, linking her fingers with Ernie's in the stocky Hufflepuff's lap.
"I've been beyond that point half the summer," Harry groaned. "Once I moved in with them, they spent the whole month alternating between being pissed off at me, and trying to be my best friends again. I'm sick of it."
"So you're done pretending with them? Neville checked, and Harry nodded.
"I don't care if they think it's teenage angst, I've got actual friends to be hanging out with now."
"Can't say I'm surprised," Ernie mused. "They weren't exactly proper friends to you last year. What were they expecting?"
Harry hummed in agreement — Dumbledore would likely have something to say about it, but Harry couldn't be bothered to care anymore. If the old man wanted him to stay friends with Ron and Hermione, he wouldn't have let them ignore Harry for the first half of summer.
Though there was no reappearance from the two Gryffindor prefects, the compartment slowly emptied as people left to greet other friends, until once again it was just the three Gryffindors and Luna. Harry stretched his legs out, propping socked feet up on the seat opposite. Sometime soon, they'd have to change into their robes, but there was a little more time yet.
Just as he was beginning to consider a nap, there was yet another knock on the compartment door.
"Merlin, we're popular," Ginny remarked — only to freeze when a head of platinum blond hair snuck in.
Harry couldn't help the grin that stretched across his face, though at a swift kick to the ankle from Neville, he quickly schooled it into something less lovestruck. "I was wondering if you'd show up. Chill out, Ginny; we're friends now. I'll explain later, promise."
Luna didn't seem to even notice the interruption, engrossed in the Quibbler once more. Ginny eyed Draco suspiciously, but eventually nodded. "You and your secrets, Potter," she grumbled.
"Those never-ending secrets," Draco agreed drily. "I can't stay long. I told Crabbe and Goyle I was going to the bathroom." Harry snickered, sitting up straight so Draco could perch on the seat beside him. It was torture, having him so close and having to maintain a friendly distance. "I just wanted to confirm that myself and the others will still come to study group when we can."
"Even Cassius?" Harry asked, brow furrowing. Draco nodded.
"Yes, but we'll have to step up our acting game. No civility outside of study group, unless it's Blaise or Daphne. We're working on things within the house," he added in assurance. "Keep us in the loop, alright? And do try not to be offended by anything we may do or say in public." He glanced askance, including Neville in that. Harry just grinned.
"When have I ever been offended by something you did or said?" he teased, laughing when Draco just stared at him. "Don't worry, it'll be fine. We've kept things hidden this long, after all." Kept some things hidden even from their inner friend group. "But if you hex me, I'll hex you back."
Draco's gaze met his, and heat flared for just long enough to send a frisson of electricity through Harry's body. "Challenge accepted, Potter." He straightened out his uniform, which already had the shiny prefect badge pinned to the lapel. "Just remember, I can give detentions."
There were a dozen things Harry could say to that, and none of them were appropriate for present company. "I'd like to see you try," he joked instead, green eyes burning into silver.
There was a long pause, then Neville coughed pointedly.
"I'd better go," Draco remarked. Then he paused, digging into his trouser pocket and pulling out the two-way mirror. "Here, you can have that back. Thank you for lending it to me."
Harry quickly stashed it away, smiling. "Glad you got some use out of it." So very, very glad — he would've worried himself sick all summer without that means of communication.
He wished he could speak plainly, but he wasn't quite ready to out them to Ginny and Luna yet. Instead he met Draco's gaze pointedly as the blond stood to leave. "We'll catch up properly soon, yeah?"
"Once things settle down," Draco promised. He straightened up, nodding to the compartment at large. "Longbottom. Weasley. Lovegood. Enjoy the rest of the journey."
And then he was gone.
Silence stretched between them.
"You have a whole lot of explaining to do," Ginny declared. "Both of you," she turned her glare on Neville, who gulped.
"It's a long story, Gin," Harry sighed, checking his watch. "Let's get changed and then I'll tell you, yeah?"
She was already in on so many of his secrets, Draco's loyalty was one more she could handle.
As for their relationship — she'd have to remain oblivious to that, for now.
.-.
The four of them stuck together on the way off the train, Harry hiding a smile at the sight of Hermione bossing first years about while Ron stood by her side looking longingly at the carriages up to the castle. His gaze slid over to where Hagrid would be waiting to take them to the boats — and he paused. Hagrid wasn't there. Instead, Professor Grubbly-Plank was the one calling for the first years to gather round.
Where was Hagrid??
Harry knew the man had been on some sort of mission for the Order over the summer — something to do with giants in France, Remus hadn't been too knowledgable on the details. But surely he wasn't still there? Fear gripped his chest; had something happened to Hagrid?
No. Someone would have told him.
"Harry, you're blocking the door," Ginny said with a roll of her eyes, grabbing him by the elbow. He let her drag him over to the carriages, and got his second surprise of the evening, in the form of huge black skeletal horses hooked up to the previously self-driving carriages.
"What the…"
"They're thestrals." He jumped, whipping around to see Cassius stood at his shoulder, gaze fixed on the ghoulish creatures. Harry stared at him; the Slytherin boy was thin, his usually tanned face pale. His already prominent cheekbones looked painfully sharp, and there was a faint distortion of magic around his eyes that betrayed the glamour he was using, no doubt to hide dark circles from sleepless nights.
Or worse, bruises.
"Cassius…" Harry breathed, watching the boy's face harden. There were students all around them, this was not the time nor place to ask about Cassius' summer. But, God, it looked like he'd had a shittier one than even Harry.
A halfhearted glare was all Harry got, before the Slytherin was stalking off to join his housemates in a carriage. Harry went with his three friends, lips pursed in thought as the carriage rolled towards the castle.
He'd read about thestrals; they could only be seen by people who had seen death. It made sense to Harry, why he could see them now.
Had Cassius always been able to, or was that a product of his summer?
He hoped Draco could talk to the older Slytherin, even if no one else could.
Hagrid wasn't in the Great Hall either, when they filed in to take their seats. Luna danced off towards the Ravenclaw table, and Ginny moved to sit with Colin and some of her other year mates. Firmly ignoring Ron and Hermione, Harry and Neville continued a little further down the table to sit near the rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team, and Lee Jordan.
"Hiya, Harry," Angelina greeted, smiling broadly with her hand in Fred's on the tabletop. Fred looked a lot happier than he'd been in the summer, too — George had regularly teased him about how much he'd missed his girlfriend, and clearly he was not remotely ashamed by it. It made Harry want to look towards the Slytherin table, but he couldn't risk it.
"Hey, everyone. Good to see you." He grinned quickly. "Let's hope they don't cancel quidditch again this year, hmm? Congrats, Angie," he added, seeing the shiny captain's badge on her robe.
"They'd better bloody not," she muttered, glaring up at Dumbledore suspiciously. "This is our last chance for another cup win."
It made Harry's chest hurt to think about quidditch without Angelina — and without the Alicia and the twins, who would graduate with her — and when he glanced over at Katie, he could see she felt the same way.
"Let's hope there's a brilliant keeper somewhere in this lot, then," Katie remarked, looking over the assorted Gryffindors. Harry had almost forgotten that they still had to replace Oliver, since there had been no quidditch the year before. He wondered if that had anything to do with Ron's request for a new broomstick.
"Never mind that," George cut in, smirking. "Have you seen the fresh meat up at the head table?"
Harry turned his eyes to the teachers, and flinched at the blaze of pink sat right beside Dumbledore. "Who the hell is she?" She looked like an overgrown toddler, with her round face and fuzzy pink cardigan.
"New Defence professor, got to be," Fred said. "Looks like you're in luck, Harry — I highly doubt she's a Death Eater, with a wardrobe like that."
The girls giggled, but Harry only felt dread, remembering Draco's words about Fudge's delight with the appointment.
Time would tell, he supposed.
A hush descended over the hall as McGonagall brought the Sorting Hat to its usual place, and a long line of first years filed down the middle of the hall. Harry braced himself for a song.
He did not expect the one that followed.
The clear warning about inter-house rivalry hung heavy in the air, long after the sorting itself had begun. Harry looked up at Dumbledore — the headmaster's lips were curved in a genial smile, but Harry could see the annoyance in those twinkling blue eyes. He was not happy with that hat.
"Bit on the nose, wasn't it?" George whispered, leaning close to Harry. Harry hummed in agreement, sharing a look with Neville.
Hogwarts was on their side, he could feel it.
At the end of the Sorting, the tables filled with food after some brief words from Dumbledore. Harry was ravenous, and eagerly began to fill his plate.
"Guess the hat's told us, then," Katie remarked, passing Harry a bowl of peas. "Better keep up our study groups. I'm glad — I swear, my OWLs wouldn't have been half as good if not for some of the Ravenclaws helping me out."
"You got good marks, then?" Harry asked, and Katie beamed as she nodded.
"Are they really as hard as people say they are?" Neville asked anxiously. Katie's smile softened.
"They're not too bad. As long as you remember to go over the early years of stuff as well as just what you learn in fifth year. But the teachers are good at making sure the important things are covered, and now everyone revises together I'm sure you'll do great. Well," she added, glancing doubtfully at the brand new professor. "DADA might be a bit hit and miss. But hell, that's what you've got Harry for, isn't it?" she joked. "I bet he knows more on the subject than I do."
"Probably knows more than our new teacher, by the looks of her," George agreed, bumping Harry's shoulder as a flush filled the younger Gryffindor's cheeks.
"There's something familiar about her," he said, looking back up at the woman as she cut dainty little bites of chicken. "I've seen her before, somewhere. Maybe in the paper?"
"We'll find out soon enough," Fred dismissed. "Can you pass the gravy?"
As they ate, Harry happily listened to the three chasers talk about their summers. He tried to, at least; hearing his name whispered from a dozen different directions was rather distracting, as much as he was somewhat used to it after all these years. Luckily, from what he could gather only a handful of people were calling him a lunatic and quoting the Prophet; the rest were remarking on how he wasn't sat with Ron and Hermione.
He smiled vindictively into his roast beef. Perhaps with the whole school talking about it, they might finally leave him alone.
Dinner made way for dessert, and when the room was full of groaning stomachs and straining belts, Dumbledore vanished the plates with a wave of his hand, standing up. Harry stifled a yawn as the headmaster went through the usual warnings about the forest and banned objects, perking up when he gestured to the woman in pink at his side. "Professor Umbridge, our new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor," he introduced. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Susan at the Hufflepuff table, glaring like a scalded cat.
He knew that name. Why did he know that name?
It hit him just as the woman stood to make a speech of her own, clearing her throat in a falsely delicate way. Her every word sent a chill down his spine.
She was Fudge's Senior Undersecretary. The very definition of a Ministry toadie.
Worse, she held the Selwyn seat of the Wizengamot, and was responsible for most of the awful, restrictive, bullshit creature laws. Harry had heard Remus and Snape cursing her name more than once — indeed, further down the table, Snape looked like he wanted to kill her where she stood.
This was not good.
It was hard to pay attention through her long-winded, Ministry propaganda-filled speech, but Harry did his best. Throughout the hall, the other heirs were doing the same. Susan looked furious.
Umbridge may be smiling sweetly, but her words were poorly-disguised venom. Fudge was watching Hogwarts, now — he didn't trust Dumbledore, and he certainly didn't trust the students. Harry wondered how many of last year's quiet rebellions had made their way back to the Minister's ear. How much he knew about how ready a bunch of teenagers were to utterly destroy him.
As Umbridge finally finished, taking her seat once more, Harry caught Susan's eye intently.
Their plans were going to have to change.