Chapter 10
After the relatively quiet first day, Harry was on edge just waiting for things to come to a head with Ron and Hermione. He'd barely seen either of them, mostly spending the previous day with Neville. Questions and hurt feelings were no doubt on their way.
He and Neville had been the first boys in their dorm up and ready again. Waving morning to Dean and Seamus as they staggered around getting ready, the two boys headed down for breakfast. Ron was still snoring. Harry hoped that the talk with McGonagall meant that he'd set his alarm but after being responsible for getting the lanky redhead up for two years, Harry was done. He had been responsible for getting himself up for years, at far earlier hours. And it seemed like the others had as well if the looks and grumblings in Ron’s direction were anything to go by that morning.
“Something going on between you and Ron, Harry?” Neville asked as they made their way down to the Common room. Morning curfew was still in effect, they had some time to chat before breakfast.
“No…I dunno. Maybe? It's just, some things happened this summer and I don't know if I can talk to Ron about it. And no one else needs a daily wake up call, so why do we keep doing it for him…” Harry trailed off with a shrug as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Yeah. I get that. My Gran would never let me get away with that either.” The taller boy agreed with a wince.
“Morning Hermione.”
“Good morning, Neville, Harry.” The bushy haired witch returned from her spot closest to the door. To Harry, it looked like she was in the starting block, chomping at the bit for curfew to lift. The clock on the mantle chimed seven and she was up like a shot, heading out the portrait door.
“Oh! Harry! Before I forget. Here. I made you a revision schedule.” With that, she thrust a muggle planner into his hands, already bursting with color tabs along the edge, and headed out the door.
The two boys just stared after her in shock. “Did she really just…” Neville trailed off.
“Yup.” Harry replied, popping the p at the end as he thumbed through the planner. “This is…insane. She's insane. Abso-bloodly mental. I'm not even taking these electives anymore.” With a sigh, he tucked the offending planner into his bag and followed Neville down to breakfast.
After a quiet breakfast, which included an awkward nod of greeting from Graham Montague seated deep in the Slytherin Quidditch team and no sign of either Hermione or Ron, Harry and Neville found their way to their first class for Study of Ancient Runes. Again dragging the larger boy to the front of the class, claiming his glasses as the reason for his change in seating preference that year. As the third years made their way in for first period, their table was eventually joined by Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff.
The door closed with the bell and Professor Babbling made her way toward the front of the class.
“Welcome, everyone, to the Study of Ancient Runes. I know that for many of you, this will be your first introduction to the different systems that are used in ancient texts and spellcasting and creation. To start off, we'll do a quick exercise just for fun. Everyone, please join up into groups of four and, using your copy of Spellman's Syllabary, see if you can translate the passage on the board.”
Harry looked around for a fourth. In the far corner he spied a tall, thin boy in Slytherin robes. “Hey, Nott, right?”
The boy looked up and nodded, face cautiously flat.
“Want to join our group? We need a fourth.”
After a considering gaze was leveled at the three already seated at the table, Nott unfolded himself from his chair and joined them. As he took his seat, the door clicked open.
“Can I help you Miss…?” Professor Babbling turned from where she was wandering through the room checking on the tables as they all settled into their task.
“Granger. Hermione Granger.”
Harry turned. What was Hermione doing here? Wasn't she taking Care with Ron?
“Mmm. Miss Granger. You're tardy. Five points from Gryffindor. Please take a seat at a table and get started, your table mates can fill you in on what we are doing. We are just getting started on the translation from the board.”
Harry watched as Hermione started toward his table before realizing it was already full. Her face turning red, she dropped into a seat at the back at a table with a trio of Ravenclaws Harry didn't recognize.
“I can move if you want to work with her instead.” Harry heard Nott offer.
Neville nudged his arm.
“No, that's fine. Might be nice to study with someone new for a change.” Harry responded.
Hannah snorted at Neville’s enthusiastic nod in agreement.
Formal introductions were made around the table and they got to work. Class passed in a blur. Hermione seemed to be ignoring her tablemates whenever Harry glanced up, staring daggers at their table. Harry shrugged it off, it probably wasn't even about him. Before he knew it, he and Neville were waving bye to Hannah with a promise to meet up in the library on Saturday and making their way to Defense Against the Dark Arts, trailing after Nott – “Call me Theo", quietly discussing how they felt about the class.
***
“Harry! Wait up!”
Harry grimaced.
“Harry! I thought you signed up for Care! What about Ron? And of course, Hagrid must be heartbroken. Why didn't you say anything? And McGonagall let you switch? With your grades and work ethic? Honestly. I’ve talked with the upper years, they say that the subject is insanely difficult, especially for OWLs and NEWTs. I don't know if I have time to tutor both of you on top of everything. Are you sure you're up for the workload, Harry? Neville? Are you sure you understand what was gone over today, it was very complex. Even the Ravenclaws I was sitting with seemed to be having trouble with the translation.”
Harry took a deep breath to calm himself while glancing up at Neville. The tall, awkward boy was hunching in on himself the longer Hermione ranted. Grabbing the strap of Neville's bag, Harry pulled him after Nott. “C'mon, Nev. Defense.”
Leaving the stunned girl gaping, Harry and Neville hurried to catch up with Theo and see if he wanted to join them and Hannah Abbott when they met up to study. Harry did his best to ignore her indignant spluttering behind them as they walked off but he was really dreading the explosion when Ron and Hermione both had him alone.
Harry was right. Things didn't get better when Ron saw them walking up discussing class and their first homework assignment with Theo, a red-faced Hermione ignored and trailing behind them, still trying to butt in about changing their schedules back to Care with Hagrid.
“Harry! And Neville? Where were you? You skived off Care! On the first day! Hermione? I thought you were behind me coming up? Where'd you find Harry and Neville?” Luckily, Harry was saved from having to answer Ron by Professor Lupin ushering the students in for their first Defense class of the year.
The reprieve lasted only until lunch.
***
“Harry! What's going on?” Ron asked as soon as they were clear of the Defense classroom doors, shoving Neville aside, Hermione right at this shoulder.
Harry just stared at his best friends in confusion, inching back toward Neville. “Uh…” He tugged at his chapped lip with his teeth, the blood of the cut grounding him.
“Harry didn't skip, Ronald. He apparently switched to Ancient Runes.” Hermione announced with more vemon than Harry thought a class schedule warranted.
Ron stalked toward the two other boys. “Seriously? Didn't think you had a swot in you. And don't forget you still haven’t said why you weren't at Diagon when we came to get you! What about all summer? Your letters made it sound like things with the Dursleys were awful but then you go back to them instead of staying at the Leaky?”
“What? So I switched electives? Ron. I mean, yeah, things at the Dursleys were how they always are. I spent one night at the Leaky, got my books for term the next day and actually had time to really look around, you know? I checked out the books for Runes and Arithmancy while I was at Flourish and Blotts and they looked like something that I would want to learn. So I asked McGonagall if I could switch. I didn't know that I needed to ask anyone's permission.” Harry was getting flustered.
“Come on, Neville, let's get lunch.” Tugging on the larger boy's sleeve, Harry side stepped around a red faced Ron and Hermione, cautiously leaving them imminent explosion behind.
“Harry?” Neville's quiet question pulled Harry from his spiral about why Ron and Hermione were bothering him this year when they weren't acting too terribly different from before.
“Yeah, Nev?”
“Is…is spending time with me causing problems?”
“What? No! It's not you, promise. I just…I learned some things over the summer…about myself, you know. And I don't think that Ron or Hermione are going to like it very much.”
“Oh…” Harry glanced at Neville. The boy seemed to be trying keep whatever he wanted to say from exploding out of him as they passed into the Great Hall.
“Just spit it out Neville. I can take it. Promise.”
Dropping into a seat firmly in the middle of the already crowded table, next to Harry, Neville finally whispered “If they don't like it, that's their problem, not yours.” The shy boy took a deep breath and pushed on. “You shouldn't try to put yourself in a box for anyone else. Even when it's easier to do.”
Harry looked, actually looked, at the boy beside him. Everyone wrote Neville Longbottom off as an Herbology obsessed near-squib. Harry had too, and he felt guilt crawl into his gut at the realization. He'd heard the casual references to what Neville's family had done to try and force his accidental magic to manifest, the expectations to be just like his father, including using the former Auror's wand.
“You’re right, Neville. Library after lunch? We have revision test next week too.” Neville nodded with a smile.
“Yeah, and I'll ask Sprout about the Independent Study Greenhouse. Your Herbology skills are … “
“Just say awful, Neville. I can handle Muggle plants to problem, it's the ones that want to eat me before I’m a corpse that are the problem.” Harry laughed.
***
The rest of that first couple weeks of classes passed similarly, with Harry and Neville quietly becoming thick as thieves while dodging Hermione and Ron around the castle. They had already established a Friday afternoon study schedule with Theo Nott and Hannah Abbott, that quickly expanded to include others from their classes, trading help where needed.
There had been a slight hiccup after Neville's first Divination Class, where Trelawney had predicted Ron's death after his tea leaves took the shape of a Grim. But Professor McGonagall had quashed that quickly with her announcement that there was a student death predicted by that teacher every year and none had come to pass before passing out their review tests and ordering silence for the rest of the period.
Snape was still horrible, threatening life, limb, and pet of everyone not in Slytherin. In an awful way, his acerbic temper was soothing in its familiarity. It meant that he still didn't know of his relation to Harry. And with their study group, Harry and Neville were no longer botching their potions, so they had moved on from being taunted to ignored by the looming black bat. A vast improvement.
Ron had Hermione seemed to be drifting apart without Harry in the middle to keep the peace. The argument from the train about how Hermione's new half-kneazle, Crookshanks, was after Scabbers and the defense that the feline was just following instincts and Ron should keep Scabbers in his cage because that's what it was bought for had escalated into shouting matches. These screaming matches always ended up with the common room pretending that nothing was going on, Ron stomping off in anger, Hermione returning to her endless, frazzled studying, tucked in random corners around the castle - she'd tried to insert herself into one of the first Third Year study groups in the library and was quickly banned from the library by Madam Pince for behavior after she started shouting about Slytherins.
Harry and Neville did their level best to escape the notice of either of them.