His 'spleen' now well vented, Harry almost packed away his things and went to bed.
He was going to make hundreds of copies of his written rant and leave a copy on each place at the four House tables and the head table in the Great Hall, very early the next morning. However, he felt his penmanship still showed through and would quickly identify him as the author. Instead, he pulled out his order form for Flourish & Blotts and found where it said he could order a dicta-quill. And ordered one to be owled to him.
Though it was late, Hedwig was out hunting. She immediately aborted her hunt and flew to the Ravenclaw tower. As apology, Harry handed the owl two owl treats and let her finish them before attaching the order form to the owl's harness. "There's no rush for this, Hed," he whispered to her. "Take your time flying to Diagon Alley and you can stay there until you're ready to return."
With a final kiss to her head he sent her on her way.
Harry spent almost the entire next day, Sunday, in the infirmary. And only left when Madam Pomfrey would shoo him out to get meals or just 'sunshine', since the snow was well and truly melted away and the days were warming up.
After spending time with Daphne, he'd move on to Tracey, then Hermione. And he told them all about what had happened the previous night. He told Daphne how he knew she'd be upset with him for losing his temper again, but hoped she'd understand why he did it, and that it needed doing. To Hermione he said he knew how she'd berate him, even using his full given name, and how much it made him wince as he knew what it foretold. And that he knew he was going to be in a world of verbal hurt before she stopped yelling at him.
After lunch he went across to visit young Colin, who had been there the longest, and told him all sorts of things about what he had been up to. That the school no longer seemed to think he was the Heir of Slytherin, after eight very long months, and that he was trying to figure out what it was that had petrified him and the others, since no one else seemed to be doing anything of the sort.
He also told the boy how he was now sleeping near three very beautiful witches and that he'd better watch himself near them or he, Harry, would have to come and deal with him. To Justin, he spoke about how he didn't even know he was a parselmouth until that night of a disaster known as the one and only duelling club meeting. He also told the boy he was pretty sure the beast was a snake of some kind because it was the emblem of Slytherin House; while people heard hissing coming from the walls, he'd heard speech of a sort; and that it was believed Slytherin's familiar was a king of snakes.
While speaking to young Colin he could see the boy's hands looked as if they were gripping something in front of his face. And that the boy had one eye closed and appeared to be peering through something.
He remembered back to Colin having a camera, carrying it with him everywhere he went, and how he would hold it. That was the same grip he saw of the boy's hands as he lay petrified in the bed.
When Madam Pomfrey came in on one of her rounds, he asked, "Madam Pomfrey, did Colin have his camera in his hands when he was found?"
"Yes, actually; he did," she replied. "Alb... The Headmaster managed to pry it out of his fingers. But when he opened it, it belched out acrid black smoke. The insides had been fried."
"Fried?" he asked.
"Well, melted. As if by a fire," she replied. "And now, you; time to leave again. There's plenty of sunshine out there for you to bask under."
Harry was spending what time he could with the girls, telling them about how life was progressing without them in it. It was a poorly kept secret where Harry and the other three were spending a great deal of their time.
But it was the return of Hagrid on the Monday that had the student body looking at him with a bit of awe, again.
As he, Neville, Susan and Hannah were sitting down for dinner on Monday night Hagrid came in through the main doors. That had the student body whispering to each other with excitement. Except for some of the Slytherins, of course.
Instead of heading directly to the head table, Hagrid sought out with his eyes, Harry. And, as soon as he spotted him sitting at the Hufflepuff table, headed straight to him.
Hagrid then reached out, lifted Harry out of his seat, and hugged him, firmly. Quietly, quietly for Hagrid that is, the big man said, "Thank you, 'Arry." And set him down on his feet.
Harry shook his head and said, "Not me, Hagrid; Professors McGonagall and Flitwick are who you need to thank. I just gave them a little verbal nudge to do the right thing."
"A verbal nudge. Is tha' wha' ya call it?" said Hagrid with a grin and twinkle in his eyes. "Well, I now 'ave me own lawyer an' ev'rything. He's promised me he's gettin' the 'ole ma'er abou' las' time, ya know, re-investi-gat'd, an' all."
"I'm happy for you, Hagrid," said a smiling Harry. "Good luck."
Hagrid patted him on the shoulder, nearly knocking him to his knees, and made his way to the head table. Professor McGonagall received the greatest shock when Hagrid reached out from behind her, and hugged her and her chair, together.
Professor Flitwick was lifted completely out of his chair and hugged, just as Harry was. But the Charms Master didn't seem to mind. Indeed, he looked happy for his rather large friend.
Harry's package from Flourish & Blotts arrived on the Thursday morning. Recognising what it would be, he didn't open it. Instead, he left it shrunk and dropped it into his pocket for later.
When the others asked him what it was, and why he wasn't opening it, he just said, "It forms part of the next and final step in the public destruction of the fraud known as Gilderoy Lockhart. And I don't want people in here to see it, lest fingers be pointed my way." That afternoon, Harry grabbed his written notice concerning Lockhart, and joined the others in the Come and Go Room. Though he couldn't make much sense of the instructions on how to use the dicta-quill, Susan stepped in to help him out.
"My Aunt uses these all the time to take accurate statements from people," she explained. "I'm now used to them."
Taking what Harry had already written, she then dictated it to the quill. Everyone else remained silent as she read.
When she was finished, she deactivated the quill and set it aside. And everyone gathered around to see the results.
"Wow," said Neville. "That's pretty neat!"
"I'm impressed," said Harry. "The calligraphy is astounding. And, more importantly, no one is going to have a clue who wrote it." "However," said Susan. "Anyone with experience of a dicta-quill is going to recognise the - handwriting - if you will. If someone really wants to investigate who drafted this, they'd first go searching for the quill."
"They'd need evidence before they could search a student's trunk on the off-chance it was a student who did it," said Harry. "I think I made enough changes to my usual style of writing to throw them off the scent to come looking at me.
"Besides, my trunk is locked to my and Daphne's magical signatures. They'd have to destroy it to get in. I cannot see them doing that."
"Now that it's done, what do you want to do with it?" asked Neville.
"Make copies," replied Harry.
"Make hundreds of copies. I plan to sneak into the Great Hall, very early in the morning, and leave a copy of this at every place setting; including the staff. Any I have left over will be stuck with sticking charms to oft used doors, later."
"And then wait for all the fun as the students come in..." mused Hannah.
Taking out a whole stack of unused parchment Hannah and Susan then started to rip sheets into smaller pieces to be transfigured. As their two strongest in Transfiguration and the Copy Charm, Harry and Neville started making the copies. Once they each had ten, they then started to copy ten at a time.
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