Chapter 36

The punishments may seem harsh," said Harry "But as prefects you are supposed to lead by example, and therefore must be held to a higher standard than most. Trust me when I say that I do have the authorisation to do this. I do not wish anyone in here to get three strikes, but if you do I will not be lenient on any of you. If any of you are caught bullying, and I promise you that I will find out if you do, you will be in for a world of pain. Is that understood?"

Getting another round of nods from everyone, Harry turned back to the Head Boy and Girl. "Roger, Patricia, I believe that the two of you had the floor?"

Hannah turned to the girl next to her and hissed "Budge up, Pad."

Padma Patil shifted a little to her right as Hannah moved to her left. The blond Hufflepuff then patted the space between herself and the Ravenclaw prefect and Harry moved to sit down.

It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but neither girl was particularly feeling like complaining.

"A guy could get used to being in positions such as this one." commented Harry as he pulled out a muggle note-pad and a self-inking quill. Hannah nudged him with her elbow.

Roger shook his head and carried on with the meeting. Harry was pleased to see that the majority of the prefects saw what he was doing and took it on board. Even Pansy Parkinson had the good sense to take out a bit of parchment and a quill in order to jot down a couple of notes.

Ron on the other hand seemed to be perfectly content to let Hermione take all the notes whilst he busied himself with gazing vacantly out of the window. Draco chose to spend the rest of the meeting glaring in Harry's direction rather than pay attention to what was being said.

Harry made sure to jot that down in the margin.

Harry was just making to follow Padma out of the compartment when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Hermione was trying to gain his attention. Not feeling up to dealing with her just yet, he ignored her. Thankfully he was separated from her by Bianca, Marian, Heidi, Geoffrey and Eric so he could convincingly pretend that he hadn't spotted her.

What he really wanted was to confront her outright, and demand that she return Hedwig to him, but now was not the time to do such things. Instead he followed Padma out of the room, having agreed to assist the Ravenclaw prefects as they took the first patrol. Actually he was going to be assisting each house in turn; the Ravenclaws were just up first.

Surprisingly quickly he found himself along in a corridor with only Cho Chang for company.

Given that Harry was the last person to see her late boyfriend Cedric Diggory alive, this had the possibility of getting very awkward very quickly.

His own personal crush on the girl certainly would not help matters.

"So, did you have a good summer, Harry?" she asked.

Harry gave a shrug in response before saying "It was alright, I suppose. Learned a couple of things, but that's about it."

"Hannah have anything to do with it?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You just seemed very comfortable sitting next to her in the prefects' meeting. I've never noticed you having much to do with her before now."

"Well, I got to know her a bit better over the summer months I suppose." replied Harry "Turns out her mother was friends with mine when they were at school together. I got in contact with her in the hopes of finding out more about what my parents were like."

"But that's not all that happened to you, is it?" Cho asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that the Daily Prophet was saying some strange things during the first month or so and then went quiet. I mean that my father was approached several times by different individuals who seemed to be trying to locate your whereabouts. And I mean that you've turned up on the Hogwarts Express with a position of authority under your belt that had to come from somewhere."

"That, Cho, is a very long story filled with lies, ignorance, betrayals and yet more lies that I am only just beginning to understand myself."

"So what's the short version?"

"The short version is that the world is about to change and many are going to fall. I hope to be one of the few left standing."

Cho nodded thoughtfully and bit her lip before leaning in close and whispering into his ear "Well in that case, if there is anything that I can help you with, anything that you need… anything at all," she added breathily "you just let me know how I can help."

She pulled back from him, making sure to brush her lips against his cheek as she did so.

Harry felt his face heating up as she winked at him and then turned and walked away.

"Holy crap!" he screamed in his mind.

He stood there, struck dumb for a few long moments, long after Cho had disappeared from sight. Finally, vowing no never ever wash his cheek again Harry turned around to walk away, only to nearly walk straight into Hannah, who was just standing there with a grin on her face that could rival any ever produced by Peeves the Poltergeist of Hogwarts Castle.

Forcing his voice to work, Harry asked "How long have you been standing there."

"Long enough." she replied.

"And how much did you hear?"

"Who says I heard anything?" she asked, making sure to finish in the same breathy tone as Cho.

Harry tried for several moments to come up with a retort, but after opening and closing his mouth a couple of times like a gaping fish, he settled for spinning on his heel and walking off down the corridor, muttering something along the lines of "Bloody women!"

Fully satisfied with her work, Hannah turned around as well and went off in search of Susan in order to share this newest piece of juicy news.

Harry passed into the next carriage and was interrupted in his non-verbal grumblings about the evils of the fairer sex when he found his way blocked.

It was Ron.

"You just had to do it, didn't you Potter?" the red head shouted at him "You couldn't let me have a bit of glory for once could you? I make prefect and you have to go and do… this!"

Harry had hoped to put this confrontation off for a little while, but it seemed that the jealous prat was going to force the issue.

"For your information, Weasley, until I entered the prefects' compartment earlier, I didn't have the faintest clue that you had been made a prefect. So it you want to blame anyone, then I suggest that you blame yourself, as it is you who was the one who saw fit to not inform me of your little bit of news."

Harry had gone straight for the jugular, and the look on Ron's face told Harry that he had hit the mark.

"I couldn't," replied Ron, his tone completely different now "Dumbledore said-"

"Then clearly your problem is with Dumbledore." interrupted Harry "Either way, don't go blaming me for not knowing the small details of your life during my forced exclusion."

"Harry please," said Hermione, causing Harry to realise for the first time that she was there as well "Neither of us liked not being able to write to you all summer, but Professor Dumbledore-"

"Let's get one thing absolutely clear here, shall we?" said Harry "From now on, neither of you is my friend, if you ever were."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but Harry held up a hand to silence her before continuing "We will continue to interact with each other in the manner of prefects and student advisor, but beyond that there is nothing between us. Understood?"

"But-" began Hermione, only for him to interrupt her again.

"I said is that understood?"

Tears filled her eyes. Obviously too choked up to offer up a verbal reply she settled for giving an nod of her head in confirmation that she understood.

"Good," said Harry "Now then, I believe that you have been keeping a good friend of mine prisoner for most of the summer. I'd like to have her back."

Hermione nodded again and turned towards the open compartment door to her left. Harry followed her in and saw her make her way over to the cage that contained Hedwig. The Snowy Owl barked happily at seeing him.

Hermione opened the cage door, allowing Harry to see for the first time that her hands were badly scratched. Apparently Hedwig had been quite vicious in letting her anger be known.

The Snowy Owl hopped out of the cage, beat her wings and flapped over to Harry, making sure to bat Hermione around the side of her face along the way.

With Hedwig now resting on his arm, Harry turned and left the compartment without another word to Hermione. He brushed by Ron as he left the compartment and was just making his way towards the next carriage when Hermione found her voice again.

"Where were you all summer?"

Harry paused for a moment, and then, without turning around to look at her, he replied "That is none of your concern."

He left.

Behind him Hermione slumped back against the wall of the cabin. Ron nudged her to move inside. The other occupants of the compartment, Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom watched as Hermione moved into the compartment and sat down on one of the seats. She tucked her knees up under her chin and buried her face in her arms.

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