Chapter 635: 0635 The Great Hall

The weather was fine that day, warm and bright, with a gentle breeze.

So, when Harry stepped through the Great Hall's oak doors, the sight that greeted him felt almost like a held breath releasing. The hall blazed with light, golden motes of dust drifting through the air, each particle catching the warmth of a hundred candles.

The decorations had gone up early: Gryffindor's signature red and gold claimed every corner. Crimson banners draped the walls, shimmering softly in the light of the wall brackets, and golden griffin crests hung with careful precision at the crown of every column.

Even the enchanted ceiling—its constellation of stars scattered across a darkening sky seemed to pour a disproportionate share of its glow toward the Gryffindor table.

But then, no one was really surprised. Gryffindor winning the House Cup had long since become a foregone conclusion, the kind of thing people simply expected rather than celebrated.

At the center of the staff table, the real Alastor Moody sat rigid.

His magical eye spun in its socket in rapid, restless sweeps, the metal rim catching the light in cold flashes. It wasn't only the eye that had been restored to him—the one Barty Crouch Jr. had stolen but the wooden leg as well.

It rested solidly on the floor, though every few seconds it trembled with a faint, involuntary shudder. The air around Moody seemed to carry an almost physical weight.

Each time someone tried to speak to him, he flinched as though he'd been struck by a curse, his upper body lurching half out of his chair. Each time, it was only Lupin seated beside him, quick-eyed and watchful who caught him by the elbow and steadied him.

The worry in Lupin's expression deepened with every jolt.

Harry couldn't blame Moody. He wouldn't, even for a moment.

Even before all this, Moody had been a man of frayed nerves, retired but never truly at rest, always half-convinced a Death Eater was about to come for him. And then it had happened—not as paranoia, but as reality, raw and terrible.

Barty Crouch Jr. had kept him locked away for ten full months in conditions Harry didn't like to think about. Whatever had been fragile in Moody before was only more so now, the fear not merely imagined but remembered.

Harry thought quietly that most people, anyone, really—would have shattered completely under the same weight. The fact that Moody was sitting upright in a chair at all said something about how much iron was buried in that battered frame.

There was a strange irony in it. Everything Harry knew about Alastor Moody, he had learned from the man who'd imprisoned him—the Death Eater who'd worn his face.

The actual Auror before him was almost a stranger. What Harry knew of the real Moody came through other people's words. The only time he'd seen him with his own eyes—the true him—had been during the trial of Peter Pettigrew.

At the far end of the staff table, Karkaroff's expression had settled into something thunderous, a grimmer version of Krum at his most forbidding. Harry remembered what Lupin and Sirius had said: that when Voldemort returned, Karkaroff would bolt. And yet here he still was, which was genuinely surprising.

The contrast with Madame Maxime beside him could not have been sharper.

The Beauxbatons headmistress was half-turned toward Hagrid, the hem of her velvet robes brushing the floor, a pleasant smile on her lips as she dipped her head in quiet conversation.

Hagrid was scratching self-consciously at his great bushy beard, his voice lowered to something conspiratorial. Whatever distance had grown between them during the Tournament appeared to have dissolved entirely.

Harry could only offer his sincere and unqualified blessing to that development.

On the other side of the table, Professor McGonagall was scribbling furiously with a quill, her glasses having slipped to the very tip of her nose.

Professor Flitwick cradled a goblet of mead, swaying faintly in time to some inaudible melody, his toes tapping the air. Professor Sprout's fingertips were faintly soil-stained—she'd clearly come straight from the greenhouses.

And then there was Snape.

Harry's gaze lingered there a moment longer than intended. Dumbledore had told him he would be learning Occlumency from Snape, and the thought still sat uneasily.

Snape seemed to possess some innate sensitivity to being watched, because the instant Harry looked at him, Snape raised his head. His expression held its usual chill disdain, and something else beneath it—something Harry couldn't quite name. Their eyes met briefly across the length of the hall, then both looked away at nearly the same moment.

Harry noticed, distantly, that his pulse had quickened.

On the night Voldemort returned, Snape had been absent from the graveyard from start to finish—present nowhere in the struggle against Voldemort and his Death Eaters, not until after Harry and Sherlock had already escaped.

In the past, Harry would have read something sinister into that: What is he concealing? Who is he working for? What does he want? Even Dumbledore's wholehearted trust in Snape had never quite silenced that suspicion.

But not now.

Because Sherlock had also said Snape was fine.

And in Hogwarts, when a fourth-year said someone was fine, that settled the matter.

Even so, Harry had a new worry to replace the old one. He was beginning to suspect that Snape had returned to his former work that he was once again a spy inside the enemy's ranks.

By Dumbledore's own account, Voldemort's fall had come before Snape's cover was ever blown. Which meant Snape could very plausibly maintain the pretense of still being loyal, could play the long game the way Barty Crouch Jr. had done, biding his time until the so-called Dark Lord's triumphant return.

Though, Harry thought with private irritation, "triumphant" was a generous word for someone like Voldemort.

He was still turning this over in his mind, his footsteps slowing without his noticing, when a bright familiar voice cut through his thoughts:

"'Arry!"

It was Fleur Delacour—dropping the H, as she always did, in the French fashion. She glanced at the girl beside her. "You are going to sit 'ere?"

It had to be said: even seated next to the delicate and pretty Cho Chang, Fleur was the kind of beautiful that made it difficult to look anywhere else.

She was tall and slender, her pale blue dress making her complexion seem almost luminous. Her golden hair fell in smooth, gleaming waves, catching the candlelight and giving back something silvery, and there always seemed to be a faint shimmer around her, as though the air itself was a little fonder of her than it was of everyone else.

Watching her now, balancing a laden plate with that unconscious grace, made the whole picture almost absurdly picturesque.

It was only then that Harry came sharply back to himself.

He had, without realizing it, walked straight past the Gryffindor table and wandered deep into Ravenclaw territory. He was standing barely two steps from Cho Chang.

At Fleur's words, Cho's face went scarlet—ears and all. She looked up at Harry with wide, flustered eyes.

Harry's own composure fared no better. His palms went immediately damp, and he had the disorienting realization that he felt more nervous in this moment than he had facing Voldemort in the graveyard.

"Move along, make room!" The Ravenclaws had caught the scent of something delicious. Laughter broke out; two students beside Cho shifted aside with theatrical throat-clearing.

"No—no, I—I went the wrong way—sorry—"

Harry, feeling the weight of every single pair of eyes in the vicinity, had no idea what to do with his hands, his face, or himself. He managed a few fractured apologies and then fled—there was no other word for it—turning and walking briskly back toward the Gryffindor table.

A cascade of bright laughter followed him. He didn't need to look to know it was the girls from Cho's dormitory—Lucy and Alicia, he was fairly certain. He could make out the words together and cozy and going on drifting after him through the noise.

He walked faster.

By the time Harry stumbled back to the Gryffindor table, his cheeks were still burning. Ron seized his arm and hauled him into a seat.

"What was that?" Ron demanded. "If you're going to make a move, you don't do it in front of the whole school—"

"That's not—I wasn't, I wasn't paying attention and I took a wrong turn—" Harry waved his hands in protest.

Ron dismissed this with an impatient gesture and leaned in conspiratorially, lowering his voice. "Never mind, doesn't matter. What did she say to you?"

"What? She didn't say anything!"

Harry stared at him. Cho had just gone red and looked at him—she hadn't said a word.

Ron looked personally offended. "You're lying. I saw her—she was smiling and she said something to you!"

Harry's confusion only deepened. His brow furrowed.

"She didn't… wait—who exactly are you talking about?"

It was only then that the absurd possibility occurred to him.

"Who else?" Ron rolled his eyes as though the answer were self-evident. "Fleur, obviously. Did you see the way she looked at you?"

Harry: (°ー°〃)

"Ignore him, Harry."

Ginny kicked Ron without ceremony and fixed him with a flat stare. "We all know he can't get enough."

"That is not—I was simply—that's just the Veela blood talking!" Ron went red to his ears, spluttering.

"What did Dumbledore say to you both?"

Hermione cut across him decisively, turning to Harry. "And where's Sherlock? You didn't come back together."

Beside her, Gemma leaned in with equal curiosity.

"I'm not sure." Harry shrugged, spreading his hands. "We left Dumbledore's office at the same time, but somewhere between there and here he just… vanished."

A knowing look passed between the friends who were accustomed to Sherlock's ways. The smiles that followed required no explanation.

"Dumbledore spoke to me about Occlumency," Harry said quietly.

Dumbledore had told him he could share the matter of the Horcruxes with people he trusted but the Great Hall was the wrong place for that conversation. Too many ears, too many eyes.

The Horcruxes demanded discretion. Occlumency, though, was something the people sitting around him already knew fragments of; there was little harm in saying it aloud.

"Hermione, you were right—Dumbledore's thinking was exactly what you described, except—" Harry hesitated.

"Except what?" Hermione asked immediately.

"He wants me to learn from Snape."

The words came out low, almost reluctant.

"Sorry, what?"

Ron's exclamation turned heads. Hermione and Ginny both went still for a moment. Almost simultaneously, all of them glanced toward the staff table, where Snape was bent over his cauldron-shaped cup, stirring. They looked away again before he could raise his head.

But still. Snape teaching Harry?

That was practically volunteering for misery. Everyone knew Snape's feelings toward Gryffindor in general—and Harry Potter in particular.

"Dumbledore wants to stop the nightmares about Voldemort," Hermione said, pulling herself together quickly, "and to keep your scar from hurting the way it has been."

"Snape for extra lessons?" Ron shuddered dramatically, looking genuinely horrified. "I'd rather have the nightmares every night."

"Harry." Gemma smiled and shook her head, her voice sincere.

"You'll need to try and set aside whatever… well, it's not really a bias, is it. I know you don't like him, and honestly, his temperament makes that difficult to argue with. But there's no denying he's one of the finest Occlumens alive. Dumbledore, and all of us—we want you to be able to protect your mind. So please. Learn properly. Don't let it turn into a fight."

"I know." Harry exhaled slowly, his shoulders dropping a fraction. "Sherlock and Dumbledore have both already said as much. I'll try."

"Good." Hermione relaxed visibly and was just drawing breath to add something encouraging when her expression shifted. She looked past Harry toward the entrance and raised a hand. "Sherlock!"

The others followed her gaze. Sure enough, Sherlock had appeared in the doorway of the Great Hall. He surveyed the room with a single unhurried sweep and, unlike Harry, walked directly toward the Gryffindor table without any navigational detours. When he reached them, Gemma shifted along the bench with a smile.

"Sit here."

Sherlock nodded and settled between the two of them. No sooner had he sat down than Gemma looked at him expectantly. "All sorted? Did it go smoothly?"

"Yes." His gaze moved across the group with quiet attention. It paused at Harry's still-flushed cheeks, then at the particular expression Ron was failing to suppress. He raised an eyebrow. "What happened just now?"

"You noticed?" Ron brightened at once, clearly delighted to tell the story. "Harry went the wrong way—walked straight over to the Ravenclaw table, nearly sat himself down right next to Cho Chang—ha ha ha—"

"Would you stop—ouch!"

Ron's laughter cut off sharply. He looked down at his shin, baffled, then up at Ginny.

Ginny had already withdrawn her foot. She was staring at him with magnificent contempt.

"Hilarious, is it?"

"…Actually, no, not at all, ha, ha…" Ron touched his nose and said nothing further.

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