When Dumbledore announced that Coli

When Dumbledore announced that Colin Creevey had an accident and was taken home, even Pansy and Draco were enraged. They knew Dumbledore was bad news, but this was really over the top. The professors who were aware of the situation, namely Minerva and Severus, as well as the school nurse Madam Pomfrey, were practically outraged, but there really wasn't that much they could do.

"At this point I wonder if it's not a good idea to let the Governors know…" – sighed Minerva as the three adults were drinking tea in Madam Pomfrey's office at the Hospital Wing.

"To what end?" – asked Poppy – "They are most likely too scared to do anything…"

Severus blinked:

"I do think this could work. We just need to approach the one that is not overly fond of Dumbledore."

Minerva arched an eyebrow:

"Oh really? Which one would that be?"

"Well, Malfoy for one…"

"No!" – came the abrupt answer – "We're trying to get Albus under control, not fire him!"

"If you actually think that can be done, you're more naïve than is proper at your age!" – spat Snape.

"Settle down, both of you." – snapped the matron – "Severus has the correct idea, however Lucius Malfoy is certainly not the correct person to involve in this. Don't forget that he is a pureblood idealist, he doesn't like muggleborns and as long as they are the only ones targeted we can't be sure he'll act. Not to mention that so far we only have a dead cat and a petrified boy."

"Darn it…" – grumbled Minerva – "You're right… we don't have any choice but wait. I'd suggest we try to figure out where is the Chamber and how to get there… but we've tried that last time."

"I'm sure Salazar's chamber can't be accessed by just anyone." – snorted Severus – "There must be powerful wards that only let the chosen people enter."

"Well anyway, do tell me if you think of something." – concluded Poppy – "In the meantime I have to go give another potion to Ms. Granger."

"Granger?" – asked both McGonagall and Snape.

"Yes. She was brought in by Percy Weasley and Parvati Patil. She is absolutely hysteric and no potions or spells I tried are working. She's wailing under a silence charm, but it's like she's not there. I'll do my best today, but I'm afraid we'll have to send the girl to St. Mungo's."

Severus winced. As much as he loathed the insufferable girl, this was not something he would wish to happen to anyone.


What happened the next day though, was much worse than having to said the Gryffindor Muggleborn to the hospital. It so happened that the girl woke up at light and wandered out of the hospital wing, she was found the next day in the library... dead. Since she was found by the students, there was no way for Dumbledore to cover it up and he had to admit to the attacks at school. Thus the headmaster was put on probation. After that the life at school went on uninterrupted and soon it was Christmas.

Most of the students, with only a few exceptions, went home to spend time with their families. As much as Harry's friends wanted to stay with him, he insisted that they should spend the holidays with their families. Thus the only company he had for the duration of the holidays were first year Ravenclaw Luna Lovegood and fourth year Hufflepuff Cedric Diggory.

At first Harry just stayed at the Library, doing the few holiday assignments that they actually had and then continuing his quest to understand the wizarding world and the laws that kept the society functioning properly. After all he would in a couple of years become a Lord of two ancient Families and gain access to his seats on the Wizengamot and the Hogwarts board of Governors. But then one day before Christmas, or Yule, as Harry learnt the holiday was actually called in the wizarding world, not that anyone except the Purebloods remembered or cared about it, his peace and quiet was interrupted by the strange Ravenclaw girl. Her name, Harry remembered, was Luna and so far Harry thought she was the strangest person he'd ever met, including the crazy cat lady from across the street at Privet Drive and the idiot peacock that was their DADA professor. Thus, the Potter heir was not overly eager to get to know her better, but the girl was hard to deter and finally Harry found himself having tea with the mentioned girl.

"So then, Luna, what can I do for you?" – he asked politely.

"Not really what you can do for me, more like what I can do for you…" – she said in a sing-song voice, smiling absently.

"I don't quite…" – he started saying, but was interrupted.

"You have a house elf following you around all the time… did you know?" – she said in the same eerie tone of voice.

"What?" – he asked rather stupidly – "Why would a house elf be following me around?"

"I don't really know," – replied Luna – "But it is my understanding that the creature is highly obsessed with you and most likely off his rocker."

This made Harry much less eager to get rid of the girl. After day he blew up in front of Neville and the twins, he made sure to ask one of the muggleborns (most certainly not Hermione) and borrow their pamphlet. After reading it, he found himself with a lot of new questions. Some of them were answered by his friends, but there were still those he needed to research for himself. House elves were such a question. Draco, Pansy and Neville said that the elves were a sort of creatures that liked working. This was nowhere near what Harry wanted to know, so he looked it up. Now he knew that the house elves were nothing like those elves that feature in muggle fairy tales and fiction novels. Actually they were practically the opposite. The books said that the elves were to be bound to their master for their own health. This meant that the longer an elf stayed without a proper master, the quicker their magic withered. As soon as the magic was gone, the elf itself died. Before that bit of info came to light, Harry thought about poor elves, forced to do all the work, but in the end he realized that it was yet another way in which his own experiences at the Dursleys and all the history lessons in Muggle School influenced his perception of the wizarding world. This discovery unsettled him a lot, because what little knowledge he found about the basics for the chaos caused first by Grindewald and then Voldemort suggested that their main concern was the assimilation of the wizarding culture into the muggle one and the high percentage of muggleborns and squibs. Harry then spent a lot of practically sleepless nights trying to figure out what he himself believed in, but of course he was just a 12 year old kid and thankfully was not required to know what path to follow so early in life.

Harry shook his head to clear it from the thoughts that were currently distracting him and concentrated again on the girl in question, who was still drinking her very sweet tea and hugging an animated pink elephant plush toy. He smiled at how strange and unique the girl was.

"What do you mean obsessed with me?"

"Oh well, he's always following you around and ever since the attack on Colin, the elf is constantly mumbling about he had to 'keep Mr. Harry Potter sir safe'."

"Okay… that is weird…" – muttered Harry, slightly freaked out. There was apparently a creature following him around all the time and he never once noticed.

"It is, is it not?" – agreed Luna and then promptly flounced out of the Library.


On Christmas Morning Harry woke up rather late, around 11 am, and promptly went to look for his presents. There quite a few of them, several even from totally unknown people. Harry received a Weasley sweater from Missis Weasley, which he sat aside and instead read the attached letter, just to see what the woman would say. Last summer he would probably be ashamed of himself, but right now he couldn't help laughing as he read the letter.

[Dear Harry,

A Merry Christmas to you my boy. Why didn't you come to the Burrow last summer? I sent at least three letters myself and I'm pretty sure Albus wrote as well. Well no matter, I hope you'll come and visit next summer. Both Ron and Ginny miss you a lot, especially considering what happened to poor Hermione.

Have nice holidays,

Molly Weasley.]

'One would think the woman doesn't communicate with her children at all…' – thought Harry – 'I mean she could say that the twins miss me, I'd believe that. But Ronald and his sister? That's just ridiculous. I wonder how she managed to get into Gryffindor? From what Neville and the twins said, the chit only associates with the purebloods that are in her year.'

'One would think the woman doesn't communicate with her children at all…' – thought Harry – 'I mean she could say that the twins miss me, I'd believe that. But Ronald and his sister? That's just ridiculous. I wonder how she managed to get into Gryffindor in the first place? From what Neville and the twins said, the chit only associates with the purebloods that are in her year.'

Harry balled up the letter and threw it into the fire, before going for the next present. This one was obviously from the twins and it consisted of a book called '101 ways to prank your enemies' and a blank and rather old piece of parchment. Knowing George and Fred as well as he did, Harry knew that the parchment had to have some sort of secret inside, he just couldn't figure out what it was or how to access it. Thus he placed the parchment into the special compartment in his trunk that also contained the album with James & Lily's pictures and James' invisibility cloak. The pranking book was stored with the rest of Harry's books.

'Well, I can always trust Fred and George to give me something both and amusing and useful… I wonder if there is something there that I can use to prank Lockhart?'– he wondered idly, as he unwrapped another present. It was from Pansy and it was … a plush toy. He looked at the stuffed green snake and snorted in delight. No matter that he was already 12, but he never had a stuffed toy… or a