Atoning The Past by Lupins Mistress

September 28, 1996

Harry had a perfect system going for him. While he hadn't had a meeting with Dumbledore since the first one at the beginning of September, he had had at least six lessons with his father which had actually taught him a lot more than he had ever wanted to know about the dark arts which had actually included the use of spells that Harry had not been in particular happy to explore. His apprenticeship with Remus while also time consuming was fun, and he had found that he enjoyed spending time with the werewolf whom nearly always had chocolate on his person and was always offering it to Harry, but Harry would never say that he only liked Remus because of his chocolate, but rather the knowledge on the history of the dark arts that Remus was always giving him in snippets throughout their grading of papers or lesson planning. However, with homework, and most of his nights spent with either Snape or Remus, Harry had found that he rarely had time to do anything else, and of course just as he realized that the quidditch team began to pester him about quidditch try outs and practices. It wasn't even just the quidditch team, mostly lead on by Ron, but other students that wished to be on the team. Harry was plain tired of it. He didn't even want to try and fit everything into the planner that Hermione had given him when she realized that he needed it and was willing to use it. He was grateful for the planner, and it was nearly never without him, but he hated the very idea of actually planning out what he was going to do about quidditch as much as he was itching to get onto a broom himself.

Harry woke up on a dark Thursday morning with the decision to catch up to his head of house and ask her when the pitch was open so he could conduct the try-outs. As he dressed and gathered the books he would need for the day and shrunk them with a spell Snape had taught him just the week before when Snape had handed a number of books to read which he hadn't even glanced at, Harry noticed that he was once more the first one awake, which had been happening a lot in the past few weeks.

When Harry stepped into the common room the first thing he noticed was that someone was fast asleep on the sofa and covered up with some sort of blue blanket. Not knowing who it was or why someone would fall asleep in the common room, Harry lifted the blanked slightly to see whoever it was and found himself looking at Imogen Copperfield.

"Imy," he whispered and shook her shoulder.

She shot up at once, alarmed and looked at Harry with wide eyes before she took in her surroundings and she sighed and settled herself against the sofa once more.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked softly. "Why are you down here?"

She blushed a deep crimson. "I don't know," she muttered after a pause. She shifted slightly and Harry noticed that she was nervously wringing her hands.

Harry sighed. "You don't have to tell me," Harry offered. "I just do not want you to be in any sort of trouble that I could help you with. You're like a little sister to me, and I really would like to help."

Imy hugged him and then ran towards the girls' staircase. She turned before going up the stairs. "I appreciate it, Harry, I really do, but I want to deal with this on my own."

Harry nodded. "I'll be here if you need me."

She grinned and then went up the stairs.

Harry caught up to his transfiguration professor after lunch, right before his free period, as he headed to Remus’ classroom.

“Hello, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said the moment she saw him. “Anything I could help you with?”

Harry nodded, quickly. “I was wondering when the quidditch pitch would be available so I could hold try-outs, it’s just everyone’s been pestering me about it.”

Professor McGonagall smiled at him. “I don’t have the schedule on my person, obviously, but I am almost sure that it is free this Saturday if you wish to use it then. I will inform you of all the possible dates at dinner.”

Harry nodded.

“I do believe you have somewhere to be, now, don’t you, Potter?”

Harry grinned. “Yes. I’ll see you later, Professor.”

McGonagall nodded and waved him off.

Harry made his way to the third floor at an almost leisurely pace. Remus wouldn’t mind him being late and he didn’t exactly feel like dealing with all the third year Slytherins that day considering what had happened the week before when one had even thrown a quill at his forehead. Remus had of course put a stop to it, but none of them had any sort of respect for him.

When Harry entered the classroom Remus was giving the class a lecture. He gave Harry a nod and continued talking to the class. When Harry approached him he motioned to the desk where Harry found a number of essays. He sighed but decided that marking essays was much easier than to actually attempt to help the class. It was this, that he hated from the apprenticeship, that work he had to put into it, but truth be told he was gaining quite a bit of knowledge not only on teaching but on a lot of defensive tactics used in the past.

"Potter," Malfoy all but growled when Harry took his seat next to him.

Harry ignored Draco Malfoy, as he had tended to do in the past few weeks of Draco's ever going bad mood. At first he had attempted to be civil to the other boy, but really he thought it was too much work. So as he began pulling together the ingredients for their potion, remembering the book he had found in Snape's quarters and the extra instructions they had given him for this potion.

Malfoy begun to prepare the cauldron, and the moment he was done began to cut the valerian roots at a fast pace. Seeing as Malfoy was doing that, he pulled the sopophorous bean towards him and instead of cutting them, decided he would follow the instructions of the Half-Blood Prince. He looked up to see Malfoy put the roots in the cauldron and nodded to himself as he crushed the bean with the flat side of his silver dagger. He was amazed at the amount of juice that the shriveled bean exuded, but he quickly scooped it all and put it into the cauldron. To his surprise the potion turned the shade of lilac described in the book. This had never happened to him before, he'd never gotten the potion exactly like the book described it.

Malfoy made to put the stirring rod in, but Harry took it from him, and began to stir, seven counterclockwise, one clockwise. Malfoy tried to take the stirring rob from him at the clockwise stir, but Harry managed to hold him off, and then Malfoy gaped at the pale pink shade that the potion had turned.

"But—but it's…huh?" Malfoy stuttered looking from the potion to Harry who was still stirring.

Harry grinned.

"How are you doing that! You're nearly always terrible at potions and then today you just—" he trailed off with some sort of amazement.

"Time is up," Snape announced a moment later. "Bottle up your potions and bring them up to the desk."

Harry quickly bottled up his and Malfoy's potion and labeled it with his names. Malfoy had begun cleaning up, but Harry could tell that he was still just as curious as to how Harry had managed to make their potion perfect. When Harry stepped up to Snape's desk, the first one there seeing as the rest of the class was either cleaning up or attempting to make their potion better, when Harry passed Hermione's potion he was almost happy to note that his looked just a tad bit better.

Snape's eyebrows rose when he saw Harry's potion, and then he gave Harry a strange look. "How did you manage this?" He asked.

Harry didn't get a chance to answer seeing as Neville had walked their way to hand in his, Hermione's, and Ernie's potion.

"Potter, stay after class," Snape said instead while giving Harry a glare that Harry knew was for the most part fake.

When he returned to his and Malfoy's work station, Malfoy had finished cleaning up and was gathering his things.

"How did you do it?" Malfoy asked again.

"Just got lucky, I guess," Harry said.

Malfoy scoffed, just as they were dismissed. He walked out of the classroom with the rest of the class, but Harry remained behind. Hermione made to wait for him, but he waved her off. She frowned at him but said nothing as she left, even though Harry knew she would be pestering him later.

"Muffliato," Snape said once the door was closed and he motioned to Harry to come closer.

"What did you do to that potion, Harry?"

Harry didn't know if he should mention the book he had found in his father's quarters that had given him better instructions for the potion than the actual book had. He didn't want Snape to think that he had been looking through his things, which would be undoubtedly what Snape would think if the book was ever mentioned.

"It was an accident," Harry said at last. "I was cutting the sopophorous bean and my dagger sort of slipped and I sort of crushed it. It brought out more juice than I had expected and when I put it in, it was the right color."

"Lilac?" Snape asked. "Then, what did you do?"

"I stirred it like the book said."

Snape said nothing. "Go ahead, you're dismissed,"

Harry made to leave, but Snape suddenly stopped him and reached into his robes pocket. "Dumbledore gave me a note for you. He said you would be missing the next lesson with me in order for you to go to him."

Harry took the note that Snape was offering him. "Alright," he said.

September 30, 1996

As it turned out, the quidditch pitch was open that Saturday and once Ron had heard that Harry had been considering holding tryouts that day, Harry could not get out of it, even if he had had to meet with Dumbledore. Hermione had rolled her eyes at Ron, and Ginny who was sitting with them had been almost as excited as Ron was. Within minutes, the news had spread throughout the Gryffindor table, and everyone that was interested in joining the team or that was on the team had begun to talk about it.

On Saturday morning Harry woke up earlier than even his usual. For a moment he considered going back to sleep, but after a moment's hesitation he got out of bed and dressed before walking to the window next to his bed. He could see Hagrid's hut from his vantage point and felt a pang when he realized that he hadn't once gone to see Hagrid since the beginning of the school year. He would go today, he promised himself, after quidditch tryouts, but even he couldn't see that happening.

Half an hour later when Harry walked into the empty common room with one of the many books that Snape had given him to read, whose cover he had charmed to look as his Charms textbook, Harry wondered exactly why so many people have become interested in quidditch this year. He was slightly nervous at the thought of confronting this first hurdle of his captaincy. Instead of worrying about that, though, Harry tried to concentrate on his book.

Later that morning during breakfast when he expressed his fears to Hermione she laughed. "Come on, Harry," she said sounding impatient. "It's not exactly quidditch that's become popular, it's you! You've never been more interesting, and frankly, you've never been more fanciable."

Ron chocked on a piece of his toast at her words, and Harry clapped him on his back. Ron gave Harry a thankful look, but this did not stop him from shoveling more food into his mouth.

Hermione rolled her eyes and continued, "Everyone knows you've been telling the truth now, don't they? The whole wizarding world has had to admit that you were right about Voldemort being back and that you really have fought him twice in the last two years and escaped both times. And now they're calling you 'the Chosen One'—well, come on, can't you see why people are fascinated by you?"

Harry rolled his eyes. He hated the new title, not that it was better than The-Boy-Who-Lived. What bothered him most about it was just how close it was to the truth and he hated thinking about the prophecy. While Harry frowned over the wizarding world's choice of titles for him, Hermione had continued and Harry only managed to hear the end of her tirade.

"…still see the marks on the back of you hand where that evil woman made you write with you own blood, but you stick to your story anyway, and it doesn't hurt that you've grown about a foot over the summer either."

He had grown taller, but he would not tell Hermione that it was probably due to the spell that had been cast on him, and truthfully told Hermione did have a point that he was an interesting subject for other people to speculate if he was put like Hermione had just described him. He still didn't like it.

When the mail arrived, Hermione was dissuaded from continuing on with the topic of everyone's interest on Harry Potter. Instead Hermione had taken the daily prophet and begun to peruse it.

"Stan Shunpike's been arrested," Hermione said suddenly.

Harry frowned. "But he's…he can't be a death eater."

Hermione shrugged and burrowed her nose more in the paper while Harry thought about the conductor of the Knight Bus.

"Maybe he was under the imperius," Ron offered.

"No," Hermione shook her head. "He was arrested at a pub for talking about it, I doubt he would have done that if he had been under the imperius."

"Maybe he was trying to impress someone," Ron offered, "wasn't he the one that was trying to impress those veela by telling them that he was going to become the minister of magic."

Harry nodded. "Maybe," he relented.

Hermione folded up the paper and put it in her bag. "They're trying to look as if they're doing something," she said thoughtfully. "Maybe that's all, I mean to say everyone's terrified—the Patil twins' parents want them to go home. And Eloise Midgen has already been withdrawn. Her father picked her up last night."

"What!" Ron said, goggling at Hermione. "But Hogwarts is safer than their homes, bound to be! We've got Aurors, and all those extra protective spells, and we’ve got Dumbledore!"

Hermione shook her head silently. "I don't think we have him all the time. Haven't you noticed, his chair is nearly always empty, and when he is here he looks tired as if he hasn't gotten any proper sleep in days."

Harry looked up at the staff table. Dumbledore's chair was indeed empty. Now Harry came to think of it, he hadn’t seen Dumbledore since their private lesson.

"I think he's left the school to do something with the Order," Hermione said in a low voice. "I mean…it's all looking serious isn't it?"

Harry said nothing to Hermione's assessment, after all how could he not know it was serious when he had lost so many people to Voldemort's cause already, and when the eminent end of this war laid in his hands and his ability to kill his mom's murderer.

When Harry approached the quidditch pitch after breakfast, he was sure that more than half of Gryffindor had turned up, from the nervous looking first years, to the menacing looking seventh years, and those in the grades in between.

After some consideration of where to start, Harry decided on a basic test, separating them all into groups of tens and making them fly once around the pitch. This turned out to be a good decision. The first group consisted of first years and it was clear to him that they had never flown before. The second group was not much better seeing as it consisted of a number of girls who giggled and batted their eyelashes Harry's way and didn't even bother to get on a broomstick. Harry told them to leave almost at once. They followed his instruction without complaint, almost cheerfully. The third group had a pileup halfway around the pitch. Most of the fourth group had come without broomsticks, and fifth group was made up of Hufflepuffs, Harry didn't know if he could handle any more of the nonsense that came with being Harry Potter and the quidditch captain. Maybe he should just change his name to Snape and hope his appearance changed drastically and then he could be just another student, normal. He rolled his eyes at himself.

"If there's anyone else here who's not from Gryffindor," roared Harry, "leave now, please!"

After a pause a couple of Ravenclaws left the pitch, followed by one more Hufflepuff.

After two hours during which more chaos occurred and Harry heavily contemplated giving his captain badge to Ron, but finally after those two hours he had three chasers. Katie Bell who had been on the team since Harry had joined but who had insisted she try out in case someone else was better than her, Ginny Weasley who had outflown all the competition and made seventeen goals to boot and whom Harry had to admit was a better chaser than a seeker, and Demelza Robins, a new find that was particularly good at dodging bludgers. Complaining ensued within a moment of his final decision being announced, and Harry almost shouted himself hoarse as he bellowed at the rejected chasers to move and allow him to continue on with the tryouts.

The Beaters were easier to pick, mostly because only two of them showed even the small amount of ability at hitting the bludgers, and while neither had the old brilliance of Fred and George they did have good aim. By the time that the tryouts for the beaters was finished, Harry wanted nothing more than to just leave the quidditch pitch behind him, and to hide out if nowhere else, his father’s quarters. What bothered him more than anything was the crowd that had congregated to watch the tryouts had grown bigger as the morning went on and now it was larger than ever. He glanced nervously at Ron and wondered just how well his friend would do with all the spectators.

Most of the applicants for keeper couldn’t save more than two goals, and Harry was getting impatient until a fourth year Harry didn’t recognize was up and he saved all but the last penalty and Harry had a feeling that Ron who was last to try out would not do as well, but to Harry’s surprise Ron saved all of them, and he would continue to be the keeper, if only he could keep his temper during a game everything would work out.

There were a couple more complainers, some claiming that Harry had chosen his team because of his friendship with some of them, but that hadn’t even entered his mind, even if he had wanted Ron to become the keeper.

“You did brilliant, Ron!” Someone said coming upon the new quidditch pitch.

Harry turned, expecting Hermione, but instead Lavender was behind him and she was grinning up at Ron who smiled back at her, but seemed to be looking for someone else in the crowd of people congratulating the newly formed quidditch team. Harry sighed as the tryouts had come to an end, and tried to listen to Ron describing in detail how he had saved every penalty, however, Harry wasn’t in the mood to listen to Ron ramble on about quidditch, he was so tired of anything to do with quidditch that he would have rather been inside serving detention with filch, and that was saying something.

“Come on, you two,” Hermione said, ignoring Ron. “You wanted to see Hagrid, right, Harry?”

Harry nodded and without one look back at the quidditch pitch walked determinedly after Hermione towards Hagrid’s hut. Ron followed after them, after saying goodbye to Lavender and giving Hermione an odd look that Hermione didn’t seem to notice. Harry noticed it, however and raised an eyebrow in Ron’s direction, but other than frowning Ron said and did nothing to explain his odd behavior.

“Buckbeak,” Harry breathed when he saw the familiar hippogriff tied in front of Hagrid’s hut. He bowed to him and then moved closer, reaching for him. “You miss him, don’t you,” he whispered to the creature. “I do too, but you’re happy here aren’t you, with Hagrid.”

He moved away from him when he heard the door to the hut open, and then Hagrid was looking towards them.

“Finally come to see me, eh,” said the half-giant.

“I’ve been really busy, Hagrid, you know that. I did mean to come see you before Hogwarts started when I first arrived, but tons of things were going on, and my schedule needed to be fixed and everything else. And then classes have begun, and you don’t even know half of what I’m doing now.”

Hagrid snorted. “Too busy to even remember your old friend.”

Harry sighed. “It isn’t like that.”

Hagrid said nothing.

“We’ve really missed you, Hagrid, now come on, tell us about what you’re torturing your classes with.”

Ron gave her a look.

Hagrid smiled a little at her and began talking about his latest magical creature. Harry grinned at him and soon they were inside Hagrid’s hut and Harry was attempting to feed Fang his rock cake while sipping at his tea. It was good to have something remotely normal to fall back on after all the strange things that had gone on around him since the beginning of the summer, and yet as soon as that thought crossed his mind Harry frowned, but he couldn’t tell them anything. He couldn’t share his latest news that Snape was his father, he couldn’t tell them that what the papers were saying was right and that he was “The Chosen One” and he couldn’t very well inform them of what he was really doing with Snape, much less that Lucius was a spy for the order, or that he had a feeling there was much more to Dumbledore’s blackened hand. He hadn’t even told them that Dumbledore had shared that with him.

“Harry,” he heard Hermione calling his name. “Harry? Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes, fine,” Harry said, but Hermione frowned at him unconvincingly.

He smiled reassuringly at her, but knew that Hermione wouldn’t buy it, but he couldn’t tell her anything.

“So, what are those, Hagrid?” Harry asked instead pointing to a barrel full of what looked like foot-long maggots, slimy, white, and writhing.

“Jus’ giant grubs, they’re um…to feed…Aragog…” He broke off into a sob.

Hermione patted his arm.

“He’s…he’s dying,” Hagrid said, “and there’s nothing I can do.”