Harry's eyes drifted across the room to a certain pale blonde wizard. Oddly enough, Draco Malfoy was not one of the vocal Death Eater supporters. The Prince of Slytherin seemed oddly restrained. He still sat and socialized with the Death Eater children, but he wasn't out in front making noise and causing trouble. With Nott gone, Malfoy's place should have been secure but now he'd seemed to have abandoned it. Theories abounded but no one really knew anything. While Harry was happy for the respite from that quarter, it also had him on guard for any surprise attacks.
Into the boiling cauldron that was Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Ministry added its hand as well. Two five-man Auror teams were assigned to cover the school from 'external hostile' organizations. One team actively patrolled the school grounds and halls while the second waited in a converted first floor classroom as a reaction force. It was quickly noted though by the students that whenever Harry left his common room it seemed an Auror was nearby keeping watch. But they weren't watching the area around Harry for trouble, but were watching him to make sure he didn't start trouble. This fed into the frenzy of both the Light and Dark-siders. Harry actually welcomed it for the most part because it kept the loud mouths on both sides from trying to start with him when they knew and Auror was probably somewhere nearby.
It was times like these that made Harry wonder why he didn't simply leave Hogwarts. It was an odd situation. He loved the school but didn't care for most of the students. But then the students themselves loved the Boy-Who-Lived while looking at Harry as though he were Voldemort's little brother. Even with all of the antagonism towards Harry, the Boy-Who-Lived fan clubs were still in full swing. It made no sense to Harry. It was as if he was two entirely different people to them.
The door to the classroom opened and distracted Harry from his thoughts. In stepped Professor Flitwick.
"Excuse me, Professor Crowling but we need your assistance outside the Great Hall," the diminutive Charms teacher announced.
"We are concluding an exam right now. Can it wait five minutes?" Crowling asked in her icy voice.
"I am afraid not, professor," Flitwick squeaked. "I can cover your last five minutes through."
"Oh, very well," Crowling huffed. "That should have been more than enough time for you to answer if you know the material. Mr Potter has been sitting there day dreaming for the last eight minutes. Since you all place yourselves in reference to him anyway, I am using his score as the scale. If you score higher then him you pass. Now hand in you papers and go."
Crowling's announcement caused many looks of panic amongst the Gryffindor and Slytherin students in the room. Harry was in the top ten of his year and it was well known his best subject was Defence. Harry wanted to groan. It wouldn't really affect how anyone in the room really felt about him but it would add to the already buzzing rumour mill.
When the last paper was collected, Professor Crowling was out of the room followed by Flitwick who was almost jogging to keep up with her long, fast strides.
"Wonder what that was all about," Ron murmured to Harry as they gathered up their things.
"Won't be good now would it?" Semus commented overhearing. "When has summoning the Defence against the Dark Arts professor ever been a good thing here?"
....
The Gryffindors made their way back to the dorms. Defence had been the last class of the day and the Quidditch team was having a practice that afternoon. Harry was looking forward at getting back into the air. Ron and Hermione were having one of their typical arguments about schoolwork that after four years was just background noise now. Reaching the Gryffindor tower, Harry made straight for his room. His roommates would be along shortly and he wanted to mirror-call Sirius before they returned.
The Fifth Year Gryffindor dorm had changed only slightly over the years. The beds and furniture were the same but the boys' added décor had changed with them. Gone were the football and Quidditch posters to be replaced with Seamus's pin-up girls and Dean's paintings. Dean's girlfriend, a Sixth year Ravenclaw named Mackenzie Sheehy, was his favourite model. They had started dating over the summer and her numerous portraits in various seductive poses filled a lot of wall space. It kind of bothered Harry that Dean still had some suggestive pictures up of his last girlfriend, Parvati. For the sake of peace in his room, he held his tongue but felt it was in poor taste to leave them up. However, it had only been a couple weeks since they had returned to school and Dean's drawings of his new model were quickly replacing them due to scarce wallspace.
Harry dug out his mirror. "Padfoot," he called. A moment later a familiar face popped up.
"Oi, Pronglet! Me and the little miss were just talking about you!" Sirius moved the mirror to show a giggling Cassie completely covered in her food. Oatmeal was dripping down the sides of her face. Harry had to laugh at her delighted grin.
"Obviously Mommy is not at home," Harry said with a laugh.
.....
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