18

Chapter 18: Howlers, Slugs and Ronald Weasley being an idiot part 2Notes:

Good morning everyone.

Here is your weekly chapter, have fun reading.

And, I can't say it often enough, thank you all for your incredible feedback :)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Upon entering the great hall, both Harry and Hermione immediately saw something that surprised them, or rather the fact that they didn't. One seat at the High Table wasn't filled yet - Lockhart's. The stupid braggart wasn't here yet. 

But they didn't really get much time to think about that, since Percy now rushed forward, something that caught all their attention, and whispered something to Minnie, who in turn appeared to look annoyed by that. She then spoke up so that everyone could hear her.

"Has anyone by chance seen the young Mr Weasley? It seems like he's missing."

Harry groaned and wondered, how the hell that had happened. Mione and him had been the last to enter the platform, Ron must have been on the Express before them, together with his siblings. That made no sense at all.

What made no sense at all too was that the barrier had been closed. Ronald Weasley couldn't believe it. How did something like that happen, and why to him? 

At least he had been able to take the car, his mum had gone shopping and his dad had apparated to work. Meaning he couldn't reach either, but the car was available. Not wanting to risk her scolding and arriving late at school, he didn't wait for her next to the car but just took it, thinking it would be cool and make him more popular.

It was slowly starting to get chilly up here in the blue Ford Anglia, while he tried to follow the train underneath him. For hours he had been flying now, hoping to soon reach the castle, when the engine started to make funny sounds. He had long given up on hoping that the invisibility would come back on, but now the engine… Thankfully he now saw the silhouette of the castle, though still some distance away. 

Eventually, the unavoidable happened. If Harry too had been in the car he simply would have groaned and yelled "damn car, don't you dare crash into the Whomping Willow again!" but that was exactly what was currently happening to Ronald. 

His wand was broken, the car was gone, it had rolled into the forest, and the damn tree had punched him several times, but somehow he had gotten away. Now Ron only had to sneak into the great hall for the feast undetected. He was so damn hungry right now.

But luck was not really with Ronald Weasley, because once he got up from the ground and wiped off all the dirt from his pants, he heard footsteps. Someone was coming closer and Ronald turned around, where he saw a tall man standing. It was dark, so he couldn't really make out his face, which, to be honest, scared the crap out of him. 

"Ronald Weasley!"

Just as the murmuring in the great hall started to get out of control, everyone talking about what might have happened to Ron Weasley, the door was opened loudly. Suddenly, everyone was silent.

"I think you lost a student, Minerva. This young fella here tried to fly to school with an enchanted car and had one hell of a crash landing in the Whomping Willow. Pomona, you might want to check that out tomorrow. So, why don't you take a seat at your house table so you can eat something after the sorting and get back to strength from your little adventure. Believe me, you'll need that strength to survive Professor McGonagall's scolding."

Both Harry and Hermione just stared at the tall man standing at the end of the great hall. Why the hell was Remus here? Thankfully, Dumbledore answered that question.

"Thank you, Professor Lupin. I'm just gonna take that chance and introduce to you the newest addition to our staff, Professor Remus Lupin. He has got an impressive mastery in Defence and will be your teacher in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Welcome back to Hogwarts, Remus."

Mione was so close to yelling at Remus, but thanks to her Occlumency training she was able to contain her anger and frustration at the werewolf. She leaned over to Harry and whispered into his ear.

"Did you know? What the hell is he doing?"

"No, I didn't, but I'm pretty sure who's to blame. Look at Minnie smirking. She probably didn't want the fraud Lockhart teaching."

Now Mione saw it too. Minnie was grinning at them. They hadn't told them so she couldn't try talking them out of it and now she wasn't even able to yell at them in anger. 

"Come on, I get it. They want the best for us students and I'm pretty sure none of them really believes our plan is going to succeed. They're just waiting for us to call Damage Control."

Now Remus took his seat on the High Table, the whole school applauding him, since he made quite the impression with that entrance. Since the issue with a missing student was solved, Minnie hurried out and brought the new firsties in. Ronald had now taken his seat too, next to Seamus and Dean who were both applauding him, but a few seats down Percy was already writing a letter (Harry had no idea where he had gotten the quill and parchment from though) to their mother. The twins were undecided between complimenting and glaring, since he had destroyed the car. They had always dreamt of using that thing themselves. Now it appeared like that couldn't happen in the future.

It was finally time for the sorting, one that Harry hadn't participated in last time around. Nothing interesting happened though, aside from the fact that the sorting hat had needed three and a half minutes to sort Luna into Ravenclaw. Ginny, upon being sorted into Gryffindor, took a seat as far away from Harry as possible, still shocked by his reaction to her behaviour. Her mother had guaranteed that he'd fall for her instantly. But sadly, that hadn't happened. She would now need to write back to her mom and find out why, and also what she could do against it.

Padma Patil was smiling. Luna truly was a very nice person, maybe a bit quirky, but very nice. Yes, she saw what Harry had meant, the girl was basically the ideal victim for bullies and so Padma had promised herself that she wouldn't let that happen, especially now that little Luna was a Claw too. 

For the remainder of the evening, especially once the boys were all back in their dormitory, both Nev and Harry had to endure Ron's stupid bragging about the ride with the car, which was, to put it mildly, annoying. But well, it seemed like Seamus and Dean still found the whole thing fascinating, so they let him continue while silently chatting about their expectations for the upcoming term. And then there was the thing with Remus.

Neville knew the werewolf, obviously, but was just as surprised as Harry by the fact that he'd be their teacher this year. And especially since they all had had a glimpse at his skills (both in DADA as well as teaching), Neville was very much looking forward to Remus' lessons.

The next morning at breakfast something very unusual happened. The Weasleys' family owl, as frail as always, dragged herself into the great hall and crashingly landed in front of Ronald Weasley. 

"Errol! Oh no."

Seamus looked up and asked Ron what was wrong.

"She sent me a howler. Oh damn."

He got up and tried running out of the Great Hall as the thing started to heat up. Ron didn't want to open that red envelope within the range of any other student, but that he didn't manage. Only seconds after he had started to run off, the envelope exploded and Molly Weasely's loud voice sounded through the hall.

"RONALD WEASLEY, ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY INSANE? STEALING THE CAR AND FLYING TO HOGWARTS, DO YOU WANT TO IMAGINE HOW I PANICKED WHEN THE CAR WAS GONE? WHY NOT SIMPLY WAIT FOR MY RETURN? YOU ARE UTTERLY INSANE AND A SHAME FOR THE FAMILY. NONE OF MY OTHER KIDS HAVE EVER COME SO CLOSE TO AN EXPULSION AS YOU. AND DID YOU EVEN THINK OF ALL THE MUGGLES WHO SAW YOU, THE MINISTRY HAD TO SEND OBLIVIATORS TO ALL OVER THE COUNTRY…"

Harry just snickered and hurried up eating his breakfast. It seemed like he and Mione were the only ones not paying attention to the rest of the howler, most of the students found the embarrassment of Ronald Weasley very funny. Even Minnie and Remus were grinning a bit, and if Harry wasn't completely wrong, Severus was holding back a grin too. After all those times brewing at Potter Manor he was more familiar with the man, on a few occasions they even broached the topic of Severus' friendship with Lily. 

Right after breakfast, Ron was by now the laughingstock of all of Hogwarts, they had herbology, together with the Puffs. Last time around they hadn't known many of their classmates, but now this was different. With basically all of those they were friendly, some were even friends.

When walking up to the greenhouses they saw professor Sprout chatting with their new DADA teacher, Remus. Mione thought that was funny, despite the fact that they had a completely different teacher this time around it still happened the same, only strengthening her hope for avoiding Damage Control. 

The werewolf smiled at her and Harry, then greeted the whole class.

"Hello everyone. I was just talking to professor Sprout about the Whomping Willow. Did you know it hasn't been on Hogwarts' grounds for such a long time? It was a present from the late Lord Longbottom, your grandfather, Neville. It actually got planted in the summer holidays before my first year. Your grandfather apparently had quite the reputation when it came to Herbology, at least that's what your father always said. Oh yes, James, your dad and my good friend, Harry, and Frank always joked around whose father was the bigger prodigy in his field. Fleamont in potions and William in herbology."

Professor Sprout smiled when listening to those tales, but then reminded Remus that he was getting off the track here and she'd like to start her lesson, but suggested that he should at some point invite some of the kids whose fathers had been his friends after lessons. She was pretty sure that he could tell Harry and Neville stories about their parents they hadn't heard before, especially because he had been a co-student and not a teacher at their time at Hogwarts.

Mione smiled, she had now understood what Remus had been doing here: he had acted like he would get totally nostalgic when seeing Harry and Neville and by that keeping up the image of not having met them before while getting the opportunity to get to know them. So if Dumbles was keeping an eye out on the werewolf, he wouldn't become suspicious. 

Now in Greenhouse three, they were starting to work with Mandrakes. This time, Harry and Mione gave Neville the opportunity to answer when Sprout started asking the questions. The young Longbottom boy was after all a herbology prodigy, earning twenty points for Gryffindor. Then they were sent to work in groups of four. Last time around that had been the "golden trio" and Justin Finch-Fletchley, but now it was Harry, Mione, Susan and Hannah. Yes, they had wanted Nev in their group, but Sprout wanted him to assist a group of students, who weren't so great with Herbology, consisting of Ron, Fay Dunbar and Justin. Clearly, none of the students was happy about working together with Ron, who by now was almost as popular as Draco Malfoy (meaning not at all, Dean and Seamus tolerated him most of the time, but that was about it).

To lighten up the mood (and simply because it was funny), Mione secretly cast a charm at Ronald's earmuffs, decreasing their ability to muffle the cry of the mandrakes. Not to a point where the cry would be fatal, but it would knock him out and give him one hell of a headache. And since the redhead was utterly incompetent when handling mandrakes (well, to be honest he was generally incompetent, but that's a different story), it didn't take long until that happened. 

For about a second Sprout was panicking, before seeing that the boy was still breathing. With a flick of her wand she put all the mandrakes away and asked all her students to wait in front of the greenhouse until she was back from the hospital wing.

Around ten minutes later she came back, followed by the headmaster, whose grandfatherly smile was more or less gone at the moment. He was holding the earmuffs in his hand and as soon as he had reached the group of students, he spoke to them.

"Good morning, students. May I see all of your wands, it seems like the charm on Mr Weasley's earmuffs was weakened, maybe due to a prankster within your group. And even though pranking is mostly tolerated, a mandrake's cry can be lethal. So please, show me your wands."

Once he had ended, the whispering amongst the students started.

"Is he really serious about that, Harry? He had never done anything like that before."

"Maybe it's because the victim is a Weasley and they're his strongest supporters, but you're right. That old meddler is such a…"

Harry was interrupted by professor Sprout, ordering them to form a line so the headmaster could "priori incantatem" their wands. 

After all the Puffs had been cleared, it was time for the Lions. Once Dumbles had reached Harry, the boy hesitated for a second, but then decided to not go into a confrontation and held out his wand. Thank god he mostly used his other wand for his training with advanced magic and so Dumbles only saw the last twenty spells, all very benign and normal. 

Then it was Mione's turn, and Dumbles did look at her with a distrusting expression. Harry started to panic, but when the girl next to him handed the headmaster her wand he calmed down. She appeared very calm herself and so he didn't worry too much anymore.

"Good, you're cleared too, Miss Granger. That was everyone now. It seems, Pomona, that your chams are simply weakening. Maybe he got one of the older earmuffs."

With that he gave the pink fluffy earmuffs back to the herbology professor and walked back up to the castle.

"Well, kids, then I think we're gonna end the lesson for today. Revise the properties of mandrakes and read the chapter in your textbooks. Thank you."

Right before her class started, Minerva McGonagall was finishing her letter to the Daily Prophet. It had taken her quite some convincing to make them wait to publish the article about Gilderoy Lockhart, but eventually they agreed. And now she was ready to have that published. It was quite mean, to time that with a book signing event of his that would happen next week, but the braggart deserved just that. 

Now her students were entering the classroom, Harry and Hermione first. The young witch immediately headed towards her to keep her updated.

"I think the meddler distrusts me. I might have weakened the muffling charm on Weasley's earmuffs so he'd faint from the cries of the mandrake, but just that, I know what I'm doing. Once Sprout had brought him into the hospital wing, she came back with Dumbles himself."

"He came himself? Dumbledore never does that, but maybe it was because the victim was a Weasley. Anyway, what happened?"

"He used the priori incantatem on all wands, but luckily I had used my spare, so he blamed it on an old and weakening charm. Still, from the way he looked at me…he doesn't trust me since I'm not playing along with his games."

Since by now the rest of the class had entered, Minnie just nodded and started her lesson. Nothing too special, just the revision of the good old "beetles into buttons" transfiguration. With Ronald still not being back from the hospital wing they didn't even have to endure his lousy attempts at casting with his basically broken wand. Repairing it with spellotape hadn't worked last time around and even though Harry hadn't seen the wand in action this time, he presumed it wasn't better off.

Afterwards it was time for the lunch break, and Ronald had come back from Madame Pomfrey, he didn't look so bad anymore (he probably never did but used the opportunity to claim he had been in mortal peril). With his usual lack of table manners he started retelling the tale of his "near death experience." That did give him some attention, but not enough, he thought. And that annoyed him thoroughly. His mother had always promised he'd be the best mate of Harry Potter, but that just wasn't true. Potter was simply too smart and bookish for him, something Ron couldn't understand.

Finally, they had all been waiting for it, it was time for Defence Against the Dark Arts. Everyone by now knew Remus Lupin, and with the exception of one very special redhead, everyone seemed to like their newest professor. The topic of their first lesson was not that special, Remus had chosen to first revise what they had learned from Quirrell, before then giving them the basic introduction to Hinkypunks.

"Yes, guys, I know it's rather third year material, but the ministry's curriculum is not that great when it comes to DADA. Professors tend to teach just for one year here and so the requirements for the OWLs and NEWTs softened. Let me tell you, I do not intend on leaving Hogwarts after just one year and I haven't made my defence mastery so I could teach you just some basics. Defence will be demanding, but you'll be ready to face the world out there afterwards."

Yes, Draco Malfoy tried arguing against Remus' statement, but luckily the professor could prove his claims with some very compelling numbers and graphs. At the end of the lesson they all agreed on the fact that Remus Lupin teaching at Hogwarts was the best thing that had ever happened to them.

During the DADA lesson, Albus Dumbledore decided to visit Molly Weasley. Yes, she'd be absolutely furious, but he had promised her to keep her updated on everything. Luckily Arthur was working at the ministry today, which meant they wouldn't even need to be careful. 

After retelling the tale of Ron's trip to Hogwarts, the damages and the loss of his standing amongst the students, he broached the topic of her son's most recent visit to the hospital wing. The reply to that was nearly rivalling the howler when it came to volume. 

"You want to tell me my son was affected by mandrake cries? Don't you know what earmuffs are? He could have died."

Albus tried calming her down by explaining that he had been wearing earmuffs, but the charm had just been weakened. And Molly, as a witch with quite the experience in both potions and herbology, was almost instantly calmed by that. She knew that even normal, muggle earmuffs saved one from dying, one just fainted and had one hell of a headache. Still, something like that shouldn't happen.

"I know, Molly, and right now Pomona is checking all her earmuffs. I thought it might have been that Granger girl, but I checked all their wands. I was so sure though."

And Molly did believe that. She had developed hatred towards the girl since that little confrontation at Kings Cross. 

"Oh, and Molly, I have some more news for you, Ginny's letter probably hasn't reached you yet. One of my spies, a painting in that little secluded corridor near the Fat Lady has told me something,"

For a brief moment Molly was optimistic again. She knew said corridor from her own time at Hogwarts, there weren't few who used that spot for crying when down or snogging. Had Ginny stolen a kiss from the Potter boy?

But no, that wasn't the case. Her little baby daughter had cried alone since the bloody "boy-who-lived" had rejected her on the train, he told her he didn't know who she was. How the hell did that happen? Her love potion had been so strong, it would have affected anyone, no matter how high the natural resistance.

"But Albus, if he doesn't fall for her, then all our plans will fail. Can't you just…I don't know, get rid of the little mudblood brat?"

And believe it or not, Albus Dumbledore was actually considering that, though the question would be how. Already working on his plans for that he flooed back into his office, leaving Molly Weasley alone with all her anger and frustration. Once the old man was gone, the witch opened a drawer and pulled out another red envelope. 

Said letter arrived the next morning at breakfast, thanks to Errol, who once again basically crashed on the Gryffindor table. All the Weasleys were already looking at the owl, wondering for whom the letter might be. Fred was the first one to grab the envelope, instantly being shocked by the fact that it was another howler and that it was addressed to Harry. 

"Harry? What have you done? Cause that one's for you."

The black-haired boy grabbed the envelope while Percy had already left his seat and hurried to him. He, who was an ambitious young wizard, couldn't let his family ruin everything. Young Harry would after all be the Lord Potter at some point, someone on whose good side he should be if he'd head into politics.

Harry was already about to draw his wand and destroy the howler, something he was able to do with his skillset, but Mione put her hand on his arm, signalling to not do that. It would be a giveaway of their skill. 

"HARRY JAMES POTTER, HOW DARE YOU…"

Out of nowhere, three fireballs came heading for the flying red envelope and evaporated it. Basically all the students were looking at the High Table, where they saw the professors McGonagall, Lupin and Snape with drawn wands. Albus Dumbledore was very confused.

"Why did you do that? If a student gets a howler, he obviously deserved it, so why would you interfere? It's just normal parenting."

"Harry doesn't even know Molly Weasley, Albus. She has no right to send a howler to him. As his head of house I intervened, following school rules."

"James named me one of Harry's honorary uncles. I'm more or less the only real family he has left. You don't expect me to do nothing in that situation, Albus?"

Dumbledore had to admit, those were very good reasons, and besides, it would be unwise if everyone would hear of Ginny's failed attempt to get close to Harry. The howler would just make it sound like Molly had been telling her daughter to do so - which she had done, truth be told. 

Albus still had one last question. He turned to Severus.

"Oh come on, Headmaster, you don't expect me to endure Molly Weasley's shrill and loud voice twice a week. I'd rather take a Cruciatus by the Dark Lord, that's less torture."

Half of the students broke out in laughter, among them the Weasley twins. Percy just shook his head in disbelief of Snape's straightforwardness while suppressing a smile himself. Ron and Ginny on the other hand started to get upset, their faces nearly as red as their hair. Quite the funny sight.

Talking about funny sights, Ronald Weasley vomiting slugs was another one of those. This time around it hardly happened differently than last time.

Harry was making his way down to the Quidditch pitch way too early for his liking, being followed (stalked, to be honest) by Colin Creevey. Then Oliver Wood gave them the introduction into his new game tactics before they wanted to start with their training. Ronald was already watching from the sidelines, probably trying to learn some Quidditch strategies, when the Snakes turned up.

Major difference was that Snape hadn't given them permission to use the field and so Wood insisted on their team training.

"Come on Wood, move. You don't wanna catch a curse, do you. We need to train our new seeker here."

And yes, Marcus Flint was so stupid that he thought threatening a Gryffindor would somehow work our for him. By now Ron had moved closer to the two captains, their argument slowly getting heated. Once the redhead had seen Draco Malfoy, being the new seeker for the Slytherin team, with a new Nimbus 2001 (not the whole team though, probably his performance during first year hadn't been convincing at all), he stormed to them and, without hesitation, casted the Slug-vomiting Charm at Draco, but - what a surprise - his wand backfired and the spell hit him in his face.

No one, not even the Gryffindors, were able to hold back their laughter anymore. Ronald Weasley was not among the most liked students in their house, he was a braggart, his behaviour towards Harry at the beginning of first year didn't really make him any popular at all either and someone, Ron suspected the twins, had leaked the tale of him stealing a Potter family heirloom. That alone would be bad enough, but Harry didn't have any family at all anymore, which made the whole thing worse.

Because of all of that and more, no one did really bother to bring the redhead to the Hospital Wing until, minutes later, the twins had mercy and helped their brother up, bringing him up to the castle while vanishing the slugs he vomited.

As one might expect, news of that did reach Minerva McGonagall and she simply responded to that by adding some time to Ron's detention for trying to attack another student.

Once the Gryffindor beaters had returned, they started doing their training. Flint's threats didn't really bother Oliver at all, but he at least promised him to cut their own training short so they'd have the field for some time before lunch at their disposal. And even though that might sound very generous from Oli, he just did that in anticipation of his team's exhaustion. His new working schedule was tough after all. 

On the evening of the same day, while Ronald Weasley was polishing the cups in the Trophy Room, Harry and Hermione were walking to Remus' office underneath the invisibility cloak, when Harry suddenly stopped and told Mione to be quiet for a second. 

He heard something.

"Oh damn, here we go."

Notes:

Well, I could say sorry for the cliffhanger, but that would be a lie. Aside from that, you should all be able to guess what had happened.

So, always looking forward to your comments, see ya all next week