Hogwarts had, for now, decided to be itself again.
To the casual observer — the majority of students and many professors — the castle looked and felt exactly as it always had: lessons, laughter, rivalries, the steady churn of studies. That ordinary rhythm was its own kind of magic, and Harry welcomed it. He had earned a few quiet hours that felt, astonishingly, like grace.
But the ordinary was threaded through with small, private tensions. Only a handful of people actually knew the true shape of recent dangers — the Weasley family (who had every right to be anxious), Hermione (whose curiosity and habit of reading everything had put the pieces together), Dumbledore, and a thin circle that included Harry himself. The rest of the school continued in bright ignorance, which was exactly how those who guarded secrets liked it.
⸻
Professor Flitwick had a way of moving a class forward each term, and the second years were expected to learn more than words and wrist-flicks.
On Monday they practiced shielding charms — careful, layered wards that could stop a thrown object or blunt a stray jinx. Flitwick demonstrated how to weave multiple small protections into one cohesive guard: not raw power, but a texture of wards.
On Wednesday they worked on locomotion modifications — Polymeta's simpler cousins: charms that altered weight balance and friction so that a broom or a cart handled differently. Harry handled them with a finesse that made even Flitwick glance up with interest; Harry didn't overpower the charm, he coaxed it, and the result was always cleaner.
On Friday they practiced directional light and sound charms — minor but useful spells for guiding someone through darkness without revealing their location. One could travel corridors with only a faint breadcrumb of sound to show the way home; Harry's variations made the light dim and warm rather than harsh — an adjustment even the teacher noted.
Hermione took furious notes, of course; Ron tried to make a shield that would stop a Quaffle and failed spectacularly; a Ravenclaw boy made a directional chime that sounded exactly like a kettle when excited. The rest of the class watched, unconcerned, because most of them had no idea what had nearly happened only a fortnight before.
⸻
Gilderoy Lockhart entered one morning with the air of a man who believed he had solved the planet's problems — and in his own mind, he had. Today he announced a demonstration of "self-protection through confidence" (a phrase large enough to contain his entire ego).
He produced a small, polished mirror, explaining at length how his own face had once warded off an enraged Hungarian Horntail (the truth was narrower and smellier, but nobody asked). He then attempted a flourish that was meant to charm the mirror into throwing back a protective glamour.
The glamour did not appear so much as recoil: Lockhart's mirror blinked, pulsed, and then — to general astonishment — reflected him as an extremely elderly man for a single breath. Lockhart gasped, clutched his robes, and declared that this was a planned theatrical demonstration: a lesson in empathy for future selves.
Students laughed, and Lockhart blushed and tried to laugh with them, but the charm had gone wrong — and the mirror's sudden mood made several second-years nervous. Lockhart's voice wavered; he attempted to salvage the moment by rattling off titles of his books with increasing speed.
Harry stepped forward quietly. A small, careful tweak of an unobtrusive counter-charm — not a showy spell, but the kind of elegant correction you don't expect from someone who had only ever performed in front of a camera — relaxed the mirror's surface and let the room breathe again. Lockhart took the credit with a dazzling smile; Harry received only Hermione's "I saw that" nod.
It was the sort of moment where the young man's restraint mattered more than his power. The class left amused and none the wiser about why the mirror had changed at all.
⸻
Outside the school gates, the Quidditch pitch hum of practice was a reminder that not all battles required hexes and hearings. Harry's flying had become a conversation between body and air, and the team's drills reflected that: faster drills, tighter turns, and an emphasis on precision over bravado.
"Now remember," Oliver barked, "control, Potter — show them how it's done." Harry did. A dive and a pull, a brush of wind that felt like a fingertip on the sky, and the Seeker's practice closed with cheers. The sport gave him a joy that had nothing to do with destiny; it was simply good and bright and human.
⸻
Evenings returned to the common room rhythm of homework and jokes, the warm smell of polished wood and toast. Ron argued about tactics with Dean and Seamus. Hermione corrected a passage in The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 2) with a ferocity that bordered on affection.
Harry listened more than he spoke. He loved this — the simple company of friends who talked about the future as if it were just next Tuesday's essay, not an unsolved equation. But even here, certain threads tugged at the hem of things: the Weasley siblings' looks were watchful; Hermione's hand would sometimes unconsciously rest on her stack of books the way other people touched a talisman.
They had every right to know, and to worry; Harry trusted them with his subtler truths in time, but for now the circle was small. The security of ignorance was a kind of kindness for the many.
⸻
At the center of that quiet evening, a small argument over Scabbers unfolded as it always did: Ron scolding the rat, Percy offering a lecture on proper care, Fred and George making jokes only they found terribly clever.
Harry's eyes lingered, not because of how the rat scurried, but because of a thing he could feel only in that peculiar attunement he'd been learning to read: a trace of enchantment folded into the rat's movement. It was faint, like a second heartbeat. Not visible. Not heard. But wrong in a way only someone who had once lived through the thing would notice.
He said nothing. He watched. He remembered — not to ruin the moment, but to choose time and manner.
That night, as the castle slept, something brushed against Harry's magic.
A whisper, faint but familiar — the tug of a spell gone wrong.
He sat up instantly, listening with senses beyond sound.
The magic wasn't hostile — it was worried. Frantic, almost.
And it was coming from outside the castle walls.
Harry got out of bed quietly, moving to the window. In the moonlight, far beyond the Forbidden Forest, a faint ripple of magic shimmered like a distress call.
A small voice echoed in his mind, half-remembered and pleading:
"Harry Potter must not stay at Hogwarts…"
His chest tightened.
Dobby.
He sighed softly. "Not again."
But beneath the exasperation, there was tenderness — the memory of a sacrifice that had once broken his heart.
Harry dressed and left the tower quietly. He intended to find the house-elf, to tell him the truth, to make a small, human repair. The promise he had made to himself in the Heartstone chamber — that he would learn how to protect the people whose names had once been carved into his grief — began with Dobby. It would not be the last time he set a thing to rights.