Chapter 26
Harry could hardly wait for Hermione to come back from France, so he could talk to her about all the academic stuff. He'd owled her about his plans to do better, and she'd been wildly enthusiastic. Going over the textbooks for Charms and Transfiguration had actually been somewhat fun, and he felt he understood the theory a lot better now. For Potions, he'd tried, but he just didn't understand the whys and hows of it: the choice of ingredients, their preparation, the methods of combining them, the choice of tools. It felt like there was an underlying logic he just didn't get. Herbology was one of his better subjects, largely thanks to his Muggle gardening experience, but even there, he was fine with stuff relating to specific magical plants, but less so with labelling the different parts of plants, and knowing which magical species were more closely related to each other. And for Defence, he'd reviewed the first-year textbook, but he flatly refused to touch Lockhart's drivel. For History of Magic, he felt his initial essay was roughly the kind of thing they were supposed to produce - explaining why witch-burning was indeed largely pointless - but he had grown to suspect that that wasn't, in point of fact, true. So much of what he'd learned over the summer pointed to the attacks on wizardkind by the medieval and early modern Church as having been rather traumatic, having shaped wizard society deeply. Look at the Wardship ritual. There wouldn't have been a need for that if being burnt as a witch had largely been an eccentric hobby, not a real threat. He supposed one individual might manage to defeat, escape or otherwise outwit a large crowd if they were skilled and trained, and not taken by surprise, but what about children? Or lone Muggle-borns? And he was pretty sure witch-hunts had been briefly mentioned in primary school History as something that killed a lot of people. He needed more books, Wizarding and Muggle. Muggle history might well be interesting, and he could definitely do with some Muggle parenting books. The Wizarding ones just didn't seem to answer the kind of questions he was worried about, like how to strike a balance between indulgence and discipline, and how to cope with tantrums without resorting to body-binds, Silencing, and Scourgifying children's mouths, or indeed throwing sweets at the problem until it went away.
Neville had owled Harry back saying his Gran wasn't letting him go out in Diagon Alley while Sirius Black was a threat, and would be picking up his books for him, so sadly they couldn't meet; but he was happy to recommend Harry books about plant anatomy and taxonomy, even including a couple of Muggle titles. Harry had also owled Dean about third-year options and careers, being careful to reassure his dorm-mate that his name had not specifically been mentioned to their Head of House; he ended up owling Dean another copy of the careers book. It had been enlightening, even if Harry was no clearer on what he actually wanted to do when he finished school. If he wanted to become an Auror or a Healer, it wouldn't really matter which electives he took, though he would need to be good at Potions; but Professor McGonagall had, if anything, underplayed the importance of Runes and Arithmancy for many of the jobs Harry privately thought of as 'cool.' Cursebreakers and Wardsetters needed both; enchanted goods from broomsticks to Wizarding Wirelesses were powered by runes; Arithmancy was important for spell creation, as well as for experimental potion-brewing. Harry decided to buy the textbooks for Runes and Arithmancy as well as Divination and Creatures, only to discover the Creatures textbook was, in fact, the Monster Book of Monsters, which did indeed seem much happier in its cage: sometimes it ignored him, rather than hurling itself against the bars in fury whenever he approached. So that was one down, although he couldn't read it yet.
Unfogging the Future was well-written, with individual chapters on all kinds of different methods, from palm-reading to prophetic dreams to disembowelling small animals. It was interesting to know that such a branch of magic existed, but thinking about it, Harry didn't really have a burning desire to get hints about the future before it happened, and that was what most Divination boiled down to. He'd rather just do what he could to prepare and then hope for the best. The textbook was a nice book to have, and maybe next time he was drinking loose-leaf tea he'd go ahead and see if they were telling him anything, but he mostly used teabags, anyway. Arithmancy, on the other hand, was promising. Maths had been his best subject in Primary school; it made sense. And a big part of Arithmancy seemed to be using numbers to make sense of magic. Runes looked fiendishly difficult: part of it was learning a new language, an ancestor of Old Norse, and part of it seemed to be a theoretical introduction to basic enchanting. Apparently the two would actually mesh together at NEWT level, with a few more languages introduced for good measure, but for OWL level they seemed to be largely separate. Still, it would be awesome to be able to enchant things. Mr Weasley must be very good at Runes, to make his car fly, and do all other modifications to it; and perhaps some of the magic that made sure the Burrow stayed upright was also Rune-based. Harry would ask.
He supposed he could always take three electives, with Runes being one, and drop Runes if it proved too tough. Arithmancy was a given. He didn't fancy Divination so much, now, and he really saw no point, as a Muggle-raised student, in taking Muggle Studies. Even if he wanted to work in the Ministry, which he rather thought he didn't, he'd be better off taking a few GCSEs. That left Care of Magical Creatures for the third subject, which Harry was quite happy with. Hagrid had given him the textbook; it would be rude to Hagrid if Harry dropped the class without even trying to see if he liked it. And Ron would be very offended if Harry dropped both the subjects they'd been planning to take together. And even if he tried to think about himself and what he was good at, well, he did OK at the practical parts of Herbology, and Care was another practical subject. He liked animals well enough, and he didn't mind getting his hands dirty. He'd loved the reptile house at the zoo that time; he couldn't rule out wanting to work in the wizarding equivalent of somewhere like that in the future, and that would need Care. He wrote to Professor McGonagall, asking to switch; from the tone of her reply, he inferred that she'd intended exactly that outcome, and was feeling rather smug about it.
Harry had also had a chat to both Andromeda and Sirius about his third-year electives; they had approved of his choices, though Sirius told him to make sure he had enough time for 'fun stuff', if he was going to take three electives. Sirius was looking much better these days. He was well dressed, and had been the recipient of a haircut and some grooming charms. Andromeda had him on a strict diet and potions regimen, and wasn't letting him spend too much time transformed (unless her daughter came back from the Auror Academy for a visit, in which case he was to transform immediately). He had refused, flat-out, to go anywhere near any Black ancestral property or do any kind of ritual; but he had met with his account manager, and accessed both his personal vault and the Black family vault, from which he had retrieved a wand that worked well enough for him, having been the property of his late Uncle Alphard. Since no-one could expect much discretion from two-year-olds, Sirius had been introduced to Daisy and Dahlia as 'Uncle Paddy', and after a little mutual bafflement, they bonded over a shared sense of humour. The twins were delighted when Sirius charmed Harry's sofa to make farting noises whenever someone sat down; he also made liberal use of the Colour-Changing Charm, and would levitate them whenever they asked, which was often. Sirius had been warned about the Parselmouth thing, but in the end decided that Heiress Gaunt being a muggleborn was the best joke ever. And he could hardly hold being related to Petunia Evans against them, not with what he had had for a mother. They were Harry's cousins, Harry's family, and that was good enough for him. Of course, Sirius' recovery was by no means complete. He was still very thin; still inclined to lose track of what he was saying, and stare into space; still prone to moments of despair, and bouts of pleading with Andromeda or Harry to let him hunt down Peter; and still prone to terrible nightmares; still very much aware of his status as a fugitive; but if not recovered, he was at least recovering.
Hermione got back from France on the 8th of August, and he was able to meet her in person and share his news. She was delighted that he was finally free of Petunia and Vernon's guardianship; rather less approving of the means he had used to achieve it, and the fact that he was now (technically, in most respects) an adult, and guardian to two other children. She did, indeed, share Albus Dumbledore's view that wizarding society's reliance on magical families and family magic was horribly archaic, and went on something of a research bender trying to discover how, exactly, these things worked. And she did, indeed, very much enjoy reading Paterfamilias or Matriarch, even if some of the contents had her fuming. She also showed him around Barnes & Noble and Waterstones, and her parents were happy to advise Harry on suitable parenting books (and to lecture him on the importance of establishing good dental hygiene habits early on). He also picked up study guides for GCSE Maths, English and Biology, just so he could see what was involved; and when he mentioned wanting to study medieval and early modern witch-hunts using 'normal world' sources, she insisted on joining in with the project. It was quite fun, studying something with her, rather than just having her help him with his homework. And she was able to find several supplemental potions books for him, which would help explain why and how potions worked as they did, and would also help him improve his potions techniques. (There was a lot of practicing on root vegetables involved.) He bought two copies each of the potions books, and sent one set to Neville.
On the 10th of August, Harry and Ted attended a meeting at Gringotts to discuss both the Basilisk Foundation and the next stages of the Riddle-Destroying Project. The basilisk had been rendered into ingredients, and it and its skins removed from the chamber. Harry should choose which items he wanted for his share to be set aside; as a point of purely academic interest, he should be aware that basilisk venom was a highly destructive substance, capable of destroying even the kind of foul magic anchors used by the Wolfshead. He took the hint, and decided to take most of his share in envenomed fangs, as well as some skin, bone and heartstring. He was booked in to have his scar cleansed on the 13th, the night of the new moon, with Andromeda Tonks named as his Healer of Record in case he had to be transferred to St Mungo's afterwards, or if medical decisions needed to be made for him while he was unconscious. The fragment was to be transferred from Harry to a crystal; the crystal would be used in a goblin-only ritual to determine where the other anchors were located; once the locations were noted and Harry was sufficiently recovered, he was to destroy the crystal using a basilisk fang from his own share. It was a good plan. Harry just hoped it worked. It wasn't exactly filling him with confidence when Ted and Gornuk ganged up on him to have him write a will beforehand.