At about the same time, Daphne stalked down a passageway in the Slytherin dungeons, on the prowl for the Bloody Baron. In her hand, she held a note. Amazingly enough, people seemed to have gotten used to the baron as head of Slytherin house. Much like having a ghost teach history. It was now just one more eccentricity of the wizarding world.
Now, Harry, currently being courted like the last unmarried witch in the world, had given her a task, and she intended to complete it quickly and efficiently.
She'd left the rest of the Gray in the common room, who were all laughing at John Potter catching the snitch in his mouth during his fall and thereby losing Gryffindor the game. They had been forty points behind, after all.
She swept around the next corner and found herself face to back with her frightening quarry. She cleared her throat.
The baron turned to face her. "Yooouuuu." His chains clinked. "Shouldn't you be with the rest of your year mates… celebrating our glorious victory over the Gryffindor Quidditch team?"
Daphne held her chin up. "Soon, I will be. I am here on behalf of my Lord Slytherin."
"Ohhhh?" His slow, low voice rasped like a creaky door. "I had wondered when he would make his presence known to me."
"My lord wishes to speak with you regarding Slytherin House matters. I have a note from him, to you." She held it up. "May I read it?"
The blood soaked ghost nodded.
"Baron Bayler," she started.
"I must first extend my sorrow that I have not been able to reach out to you earlier. Alas, circumstances made it quite impossible, but this is a matter that I now hope to rectify. I also thank you for taking up the post of Head of Slytherin House and the associated troubles that go with it.
"I would like to meet you regarding general policies and procedures of my house that I feel need to be brought into consideration and another matter that only you, in your capacity both as head of Hogwarts Slytherin branch, and Hogwarts Slytherin ghost, can ameliorate.
"Yours, Lord Slytherin - Head of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Slytherin."
She lowered the parchment.
The ghost hovered in front of her for a moment. "If it pleases your lord, have him meet me on the first day of the dying month, Heiress Greengrass."
Daphne nodded, thanked the ghost, turned and walked back to the celebrations. Task accomplished.
...
Harry watched Hermione pace back and forth.
Three weeks had passed. For the first three months, Hogwarts had ignored Harry, content to let him skulk in his peer enforced pariahhood. However, in the three weeks after the duelling tryouts and the first quidditch game, the castle jumped and held him with the clinginess of an insecure lover. Everywhere he went, people whispered and pointed.
The Hogwarts rumour mill was almost magic itself, and just like magic, if a wizard was inexperienced, and said F instead of M, they'd find their conjured story landing back on them like a buffalo on their chest, crushing their social life until the hoard moved on to its next piece of titillation.
But it wasn't magic, and it couldn't extract information without a willing source.
The events of the duelling tryouts were on rumour mill lockdown.
Harry knew Volf had threatened retribution on anyone who gave away their strategic advantages, and he was pretty sure the Gryffindor captain had done something similar.
Still, his stunt in the Slytherin common room had made its way to other houses, even if they weren't sure what to believe about it. Coupled with the similar rumours of his twin's performance at his trails, and the rumour mill was happy to make up whatever it felt like.
For the ten years a slave, ten years a prisoner that was Harry Potter, It was both intoxicating and disconcerting.
It became bad enough to persuade Harry to allocate more of his time to scouring the library's restricted section, hoovering up as much of the knowledge that Tom Riddle had missed as possible, hoping to find an elegant solution to Angelystor's request, even as he continued to receive oddly knowledgeable updates from Alexandra and Luna about their own progress on this obscure and arguably dark branch of magic.
Daphne and Hermione, meanwhile, were busy with their own projects.
Daphne was using the extra time from not researching the defences around the stone to improve her duelling, magical toxin resistance, and occlumency.
Hermione, by contrast, refused to let up on anything, and when December rolled around, it was to find his muggleborn friend in a state of near panic over her very first lesson as a teacher, even if only in a supporting role.
"Hermione, it will be fine." Harry leaned on one of the dusty desks of a rarely used, empty classroom.
They'd arrived half an hour early, gone over the curriculum one last time, cleared a blackboard space off to one side, and arranged half a dozen chairs in a semi-circle facing the wall. Then Harry had entered his shrunk trunk and exited again, carrying a large, silk-covered, flat object, which he'd proceeded to stick to the wall, while Hermione started the task which would consume her next fifteen minutes - pacing a hole into the floor.
"But what if I mess up?" The young witch kept stealing glances towards the door. "What if they ask me a question that I don't know? What if I make a fool of myself!"
Harry couldn't help but smile. "There are always casualties in war."
"That's not helping!"
Harry pushed off from the desk, strode over to his frantic friend, put two hands on her shoulders, and gazed into her startled eyes. "You - will - be - fine."
The door creaked.
...
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