Work of Karma || Cedric Diggory [2]

Chapter 2: Change of Course

A/N: I meant to post this last month because I was almost done pre-writing a couple of chapters but I got caught up with a lot of other personal stuff so :') Sorry for the long wait!

Since Harry had arrived late in the evening, Mrs. Weasley forced everyone into bed to get some rest in the middle of their conversation. But when morning came, they were back up bright and early. Analeigh, Hermione, and Ron burst into Fred and George's room where Harry was staying, hoping to catch up with him even more. Truthfully, they also wanted to check up on him properly, because the topics of the Department of Mysteries, Sirius's passing, and anything to do with Voldemort at all never even came up the night before.

At the sound of the door opening with a bang, Harry bolted upright into a sitting position. Still blind without his glasses, he could only hear the curtains being pulled back and letting the dazzling sunlight seep into the room. He shielded his eyes with one hand while he groped hopelessly for his glasses with the other.

"Good morning, Harry!" Hermione chirped.

"Wuzzgoinon?" Harry said groggily. His hand finally found his glasses and he shoved them on, blinking to adjust his vision. Hermione was standing by the window, Analeigh was perched at the edge of the bed, and Ron was looming over him on his right side.

"Well, since Mrs. Weasley forced us to go to bed last night, we didn't get to finish talking about what's been going on, right?" started Analeigh.

"Yeah! So, were the muggles all right? Did they treat you okay?" Ron demanded, refusing to call the Dursleys by name.

"Same as usual," Harry answered. "They didn't talk to me much, but I like it better that way."

"Maybe I should use the fellytone again and give them a piece of my mind."

"Telephone, Ronald," Hermione corrected.

"Anyway, what's the time? Have I missed breakfast?" Harry asked.

"Don't worry about that, mum's bringing you up a tray. She reckons you look underfed," said Ron, rolling his eyes. "So, what else has been going on?"

"Nothing much, I've just been stuck at my aunt and uncle's, haven't I?"

"Weren't you with Dumbledore last night?" Analeigh said.

"It wasn't that exciting. He just wanted me to help him persuade this old teacher to come out of retirement. His name's Horace Slughorn."

"Oh, I thought..." said Ron, looking disappointed. When Hermione flashed him a warning look, he tried to cover it up and said, "... I thought it'd be something like that." Admittedly, though, he thought that Dumbledore was going to be training Harry for something bigger, or at least giving him more information about Voldemort given everything that went down in the past few months.

"You did?" Harry said, not buying it.

"Yeah... yeah, now that Umbridge has left, we obviously need a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, don't we? So, er, what's he like?"

"He looks a bit like a walrus, and he used to be Head of Slytherin..." Harry trailed off when he noticed Hermione watching him carefully, almost as if she was expecting him to show some symptoms of grief or depression out of nowhere. "Something wrong, Hermione?"

"No, of course not!" Hermione said quickly, plastering on a smile.

"So, did Slughorn seem like he'll be a good teacher?" Analeigh tried to go back to the subject.

"Dunno," said Harry. "He can't be worse than Umbridge, can he?"

"I know someone who's worse than Umbridge," said a voice from the doorway. All eyes turned to find Ginny entering the bedroom, slouching and looking irritable. "Hey, guys."