Chapter 64

He had found himself wondering this a lot about various people throughout the afternoon. Ever since Sarah had mentioned the possibility of Hermione being under the influence of potions the notion had gotten stuck in his head. He hadn't given it much thought before now, but the fact was that he had been influenced by potions and therefore the chance was always there that others would be as well.

Harry had no idea how he was meant to check other people for potion or spell influence. Some people knew what he was up to and were checking their own food, but how could he check others without causing a mass panic? Under what circumstances could he get Hermione to allow him to check her for potions? There was no way that she would go for the idea, and Sarah couldn't attempt it as she was not the school's healer and therefore had no reason to try. She may have been a healer but she couldn't just begin casting detection spells on students without giving reasons.

Harry sighed and pushed himself away from the window ledge. He fed Hedwig an owl treat and she barked contentedly before soaring up into the rafters. Harry watched her go and then made for the door.

In a way he kind of hoped that Hermione was under the influence of a potion. He really needed her back on his side right now. He missed her.

In a very short space of time he had lost the friendship of both her and Ron, the two people whom he had previously been closest to in the world and a small part of him yearned to have the both of them back.

Currently he didn't have anyone his age that he was particularly close to. He was getting on alright with Hannah, he supposed, but things with Susan were still a little strange and really he was only just getting to know Padma. The same pretty much went for everyone else, he was just getting to know them. Some like Katie and Neville he was closer to, but there was still that gap.

Sometimes it was hard to believe that he had been at Hogwarts for four years and had only really gotten close to two people. Two people that he was now alienated from.

Ron, he had decided, was a lost cause. He had not thought of it at the time, but looking back now many of Ron's actions had been questionable. The boy was the jealous type and almost as prejudiced as any Malfoy, though he hid it a bit better. Harry recalled Ron mentioning in their second year that his mother had a cousin who was a squib who had gone on to become an accountant. This bit of information had been quickly followed by the words "But we don't talk about him." Harry had turned a blind eye to it at the time, but now it made him uncomfortable.

The main reason for Harry's hatred of Slytherin House had been Ron. Alright, Draco was an arrogant prick and Snape was a douchebag of the highest order, but they were just two people in a group that contained a quarter of the school. No, it had been Ron's whole "there's not a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin" spiel that had turned Harry fully against that house. In fact, Harry's own fear of how Ron would react if he ever got wind of the fact that the sorting hat had wanted to place him in Slytherin had only cemented Harry's attitude towards the house, and what a fool he had been for it.

Once you got past the pricks there were some genuinely nice people in Slytherin. He didn't know too many of them yet, but so far Tracey, Daphne and Astoria seemed decent enough. In fact Tracey seemed like she could be a good laugh, the type of person whom it was just fun to be around.

No, Ron was a lost cause. Harry had cut him off and he would be all the better for it, but with Hermione he still held out hope. Yes, her worship of those in positions of authority was a bone of contention, but at least he understood why she was like that. Mercilessly bullied by other children, those in authority were all that she had. Unfortunately this had now driven a wedge between them by Harry was certain that she could learn better.

Her being under the influence of a potion or spell would certainly make that problem easier to resolve but, if she was not then she had a long and hard road ahead of her before she and Harry could even come close to being friends again.

He just hoped that that road wasn't too long.

Albus Dumbledore was in a bad mood as he sat at his desk in his office. In front of him was a book that contained all of rules and bylaws that governed how things were supposed to be run at Hogwarts. He had been hoping to come across something that he could use to stop Sarah Abbott from coming to Hogwarts in order to tutor Harry in potions brewing but he had found nothing.

Her coming to Hogwarts in order to tutor Harry instead of Severus was entirely legal and above board. It even circumvented the Wizengamot ruling that he had forced through thirteen years ago that prevented the woman from ever contacting Harry. Given her position as a healer he had, of course, been forced to concede that there was the chance that one day she would need to work with Harry in her official capacity, but he had planned to get around that by having Poppy treat him for everything, even when the best action would have been from him to go to St Mungo's. He had not counted on the bitch taking on part-time employment in order to get close to the boy.

Ever since Severus had been employed in the castle Dumbledore had had to dissuade at least fifty percent of the student population from employing the services of a private potions tutor and he had, by and large, been successful in that endeavour. Ok, so the numbers of students carrying on their potions studies into their N.E.W.T years were at an all-time low, but in Dumbledore's opinion that didn't matter. By working in the castle, Severus was slowly redeeming himself of past crimes and if the little snots didn't like it then that was their problem. If they couldn't put up with Severus' methods for an extra two years then clearly they didn't have the mentality required to master the subject.

But now all of that had been thrown clear out of the window by Harry Potter! He had gone directly to the Ministry in order to get a tutor, and the Wizarding Examinations Authority had gone out of their way to please him. They had suggested Sarah Abbott, Harry had agreed and the Board of Governors had approved.

There was nothing that Dumbledore could do about it.

Well, not in his role as headmaster, anyway.

People had accidents all the time, and perhaps a body, with the dark mark hanging in the sky over the dwelling of the House of Abbott would have to make an appearance sometime in the near future.

But not just yet as to do so now would only cause suspicion. Suspicion aimed at him.

Dumbledore was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Harry's disappearance over the last few weeks of the summer holiday had something to do with Sarah Abbott in some way. He had already realised that Amelia Bones had been involved and slowly the pieces were fitting together to show that the Abbott family had played a part as well.

He had watched Harry at mealtimes, and kept an eye on how well he got along with those whom he sat with. He got along with Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott a little too well for his liking, especially given the unsteady relationship that Harry had had with the whole of Hufflepuff house in the past.

Obviously Harry had spent his time away in a place where he met with both girls frequently, perhaps even at one of their homes. This did not sit well with Dumbledore as, although both the Bones and Abbott families were firmly in the light, none of their current members were strong supporters of Dumbledore and, he was honest enough to admit, with reason.

Amelia's brother Edgar had been a member of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix before he and his family had been murdered by Death Eaters in the previous war with Voldemort. That Edgar had been on a mission for the Order when he was captured by the Death Eaters made Amelia suspicious.

She would never know, of course, that it really was the Order's fault. Peter Pettigrew had been passing information from the Order to Voldemort for a year before the war ended, and some of that information had led to Edgar being captured. The Order had been suspicious of a spy in their ranks, but hadn't done anything about it. Dumbledore had had access to veritaserum but had not thought to use it. In fact, he would not even had needed to use it, just the threat would likely have found out the spy as everyone but the spy would have agreed to taking the potion.

So Amelia was distrustful of Dumbledore. Sarah Abbott, of course, had her own reasons for not liking Dumbledore. With Harry's parents dead and Sirius Black in Azkaban, Harry was meant to have been placed into her care. She did not understand Dumbledore's stated reasons for putting Harry with the Dursley family and certainly would not have like his real reasons if she ever discovered them, and so she had pushed the matter until Dumbledore had been forced to attempt to cut her off for good.

He also knew that Severus still being alive and free did not sit well with the woman.

Dumbledore sighed and closed the book in front of him. He had put a lot of effort into making himself look good back at the start of the summer when he had withdrawn his statements about Voldemort's return. Luckily he was an expert at faking humility, but now the world seemed to have turned against him again. He did not fully understand why, but he was certain that Harry Potter, Amelia Bones and Sarah Abbott had worked together to turn the Minister against him.

And now the school was under unofficial investigation, Professor Binns was out, Severus had lost his role as head of Slytherin while the rest of his duties were on the ropes, Harry was independent of him, the prefects were being watched, the students were getting the impression that their complaints mattered and Dumbledore's standing with the Ministry was in tatters.

Who would have thought that Harry Potter being at the Ministry for one poxy day could have caused all this trouble?

Draco Malfoy was furious. The entire Slytherin House Common Room was silent as he ranted about the latest injustice that scar-head had heaped upon him.

"How dare that stupid half-blood try and take my prefect badge? Does he not know who he is dealing with? Stupid, jumped up mudblood lover. Wait until my father hears about this. He'll put a stop to all this."

The atmosphere in the Common Room as he continued to rant was a strained one. After all, the people there were divided in their opinions on the matter. Some were extremely happy to see Draco getting his comeuppance. These people were of the opinion that it was idiots like Draco who dragged the reputation of their House down. Slytherins were supposed to be cunning and ambitious, not petty little brats who went complaining to daddy when they didn't get their way. Draco and those like him didn't have a drop of cunning in their blood and while certainly ambitious, they merely thought that their ambitions would be achieved because of their family name.

Tracey, Daphne and Astoria were in this group.

Others, although happy that Draco was getting what he deserved could not get past the fact that it was Harry Potter who was the one behind his downfall. That just didn't sit right with them, either because he was a half-blood or because of his former association with Gryffindor House.

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