From the view of all concerned parties, the woman had gone absolutely crazy. She fired Professor Trelawney because she couldn't make a prediction on the spot, forced Hagrid from school grounds, banned student touching of any kind (even just holding hands), banned letter writing and owl deliveries, and even re-wrote the meal menu so that oatmeal was now being served twice a day followed by a completely vegetarian dinner, and mandatory carrots for dessert. The only thing that stopped her from firing all of the house-elves was that nobody had answered her ads in the Daily Prophet advertising for human maids, cooks, and laborers to feed, cloth, and cleanup after 600 children, staff, and guests.

While it was common knowledge that she was seeking vengeance on Kenai and Harry, nobody blamed them, and in fact, both boys were held up as legends, even surpassing Fred and George Weasley, who now took offense at having their title taken away and were working harder than ever to win it back.

"I can't believe she raided the tower and took our supplies," Fred complained one morning as he held up a spoonful of gray oatmeal and let it slop back down into his bowl. "She even took the rubber chicken wands."

"And don't forget the candy supplies," George added.

"And the potions ingredients."

"And our brooms," they both piped in.

Ron shook his head in disgust. "Your brooms had nothing to do with the joke products. Now you can't even play Quidditch anymore."

"Nope," George shook his head. "But apparently she thought we'd fly over school wards in the dead of night to get new supplies."

Harry raised his brows and asked, "Does she know you have a flying car running wild in the Forrest?"

Grinning at the idea of taming the wild Ford Anglia that Ron and Harry had once flown to school, Fred and George bent their heads together in discussion and ignored the others at the table for the rest of the meal.

Hermione slipped her wand out of her sleeve and charmed her golden Galleon to show tonight as a meeting night, and then charged Ron with making some sort of distraction in the Entrance Hall after dinner so that everybody else could get safely upstairs to the Room of Requirement.

"Have you got anything prepared for tonight Harry?"

Harry shrugged. To be honest, he had run out of things to teach.

"I think we should cover more charms. I mean, they're not necessarily defensive, but they could come in handy."

Ron snorted then and said, "Yeah, never know when you'll need to levitate a mountain troll's club over its head to knock it out."

Hermione looked thoughtful then and said, "Maybe we could cover protein charms tonight. I've been working on a way to charm paper so that we can write to each other in case of emergency."

Harry nodded. "You put that together then and Ron and I will look some up in the library after lunch."

Feeling as if there were eyes watching him suddenly, Harry turned and found Kenai trying to get his attention across the hall without being obvious about it. Harry turned back around and stared into his porridge, feeling anxious. It had been a week and a half since he had freaked out in his father's quarters, and he still felt uneasy about being around his father and brother. If he was truthful, he was afraid he would grow too close and then be shot down again and left all to himself.

Harry felt like he was in a funk for the rest of the day. He hated when he felt anxious and uneasy, as if he were walking on eggshells and waiting for the other shoe to fall. Unable to sleep that night, as had been the case in the week since the incident, Harry got out of bed and went to the cool windowsill, wishing Hedwig were there with him. She had been his constant companion, even at the Dursleys... the only friend that was never angry at him. The only friend that would never give him up.

He sighed as he looked out over the dark, frozen grounds, thinking that yet another lonely Christmas was approaching and that once again he would spend it without family. Even Ron was going home this year, and because the Weasleys were going out of country to visit distant family, Harry was not aloud to go along.

Deciding that the only way he would get any sleep was if he pulled out his journal, Harry reached into his desk and withdrew the soft, brown leather book that had also become like a constant companion. He could feel his anger and hurt radiating off of some of the pages based on how his writing looked... he'd even ripped the paper in places by pushing down too hard with the quill. One particular entry from his third year stuck out to him and he pondered that it was a truth that would never change for him.

‘If something's too good to be true, then it really isn't true at all.' There was an ache in his chest and he knew in his heart it was true. Being aloud to go into his father's quarters was just another way for his heart to deceive him with unwarranted hope and future anguish when it all turned out to be a lie. Harry had learned two immutable truths in life: The Dursleys hated him, and so did his father. These truths would never change.

‘Dear dad,' Harry paused with the Muggle pen he had pulled from the pen holder in the journal, unsure what to say to ease the pain in his heart. ‘I need to be with you and Kenai, but I know that can never happen. I hate it when I know the truth.'

He sighed and didn't bother signing it. Instead he dated it as he usually did and closed the journal again, his pain still lingering in his chest. He would have normally tucked the journal back into his desk, but felt unable this night, and instead took it to bed with him, clutching it like the teddy bear no one ever gave him. The journal was his heart and soul, come to bare from the tip of a pen. It was only too bad that there was no poetry between the paper and the pen. Only anguish.

* * *

Severus sat on the edge of his bed in his darkened bedroom, chest uncomfortably tight. Since he had opened his mind up to Harry further whilst trying to find him in the mountains, he had been receiving more emotion that ever from the boy. There had not even been any harsh contact between the two of them, or between Kenai and Harry in the last week or so, and yet his son lay in bed some ten floors above him with such a deep feeling of loss that Severus was woken from a deep sleep and felt the need to sit and cry himself.

He didn't sleep through the rest of the night, though the feeling of loss went away shortly after he had woken. What kind of father can sleep knowing his child is in anguish? Severus didn't know, but he no longer wanted to be that kind.