Previous Chapter - Dragons are mailed, a suit of armor falls on Malfoy, Hermione investigates the compulsions cast on the house elves and Quirrell makes an attempt at the stone but falls foul of Harry and Tom's trap.

Note: Going to finally admit to myself that the hiatus might continue for awhile longer and not, as I've been telling myself for near a year, end in the next few weeks. Rewritten my attempts at getting started on the next year enough times to realise I'm just not keen on a few of the ideas I had planned. Going to wait until inspiration strikes and stop trying to force it. What follows is the end of first year with the, likely to be changed again, beginning of summer removed.

Chapter 28 - Hugs and Endings

-my-friend-tom-

Dosed on potions, Harry spent the morning stumbling around trying to pretend that he was just lacking sleep. Whilst that was true, lack of sleep was only a minor concern and he'd dealt with much less many times before. It was the combination of sore muscles, involuntary twitches, his inability to form words properly due to a partially numbed and uncooperative tongue. The last due to him edging very close to overdosing on recovery, pain limiting and other awful tasting and textured potions. He was not looking forward to trying to eat or even pretend to eat breakfast.

That all on top of the stress of not knowing how long Tom would be away for this time. That is, if he was able to return at all. They hadn't planned or even imagined actually making physical contact with Voldemort's spirit. No matter how he tried to distract himself his mind flittered between worse and worse scenarios, what ifs and second guesses.

Harry wished that they had spent a bit more time experimenting with the Horcrux within the hidden room now. Maybe that would have given him more of an idea what effect having Voldemort's spirit fly right through him would have. Obviously Voldemort had meant it to hurt and he only hoped that it had hurt the spirit as much as it had hurt him. That was one of the more cheerful of his thoughts and he was suppressing a tight grin as he recalled the spirit's scream when a voice that had been trying to get his attention a few times already finally broke through to him.

"Harry can we talk? .. Are you ignoring me? ... Harry!"

Harry blinked, "eh what? Oh sorry Hermione. Umm.. Pardon?"

Hermione had found him in a shadowy corner of the common room his nose buried in a large book. The couch he was sitting in wasn't very comfortable but the dimness was like a soothing balm for his aching eyes. Why did everything have to ache so much? He rubbed at his eyes with one hand.

"Eh, what?" he asked when he realised that he hadn't heard Hermione's response.

Hermione reached over and gently pushed the book down to the table. "What's with you this morning? Is something wrong? Is it something to do with way you ran off to bed so quickly last night? You do look a little pale."

Harry squinted at her trying to collect his thoughts, "No. Nothing wrong. Just felt like doing a little studying. Slept poorly."

Hermione frowned and lifted her eyebrows in disbelief. She indicated the chosen to provide the maximum amount of light blockage, "A history of Human-Merman relations in the Atlantic. Did you even know what book you were looking at?"

Harry looked down at the book and tried to rally but he already knew it was too late. "Eh.. well… not really"

"Talk about it?"

Harry resisted the urge to just answer in the negative before he grimaced after a quick check to see noone else was close shook his head as he decided on a half truth, "Most of it, I can't. Not to anyone at the moment. My tutor. Well.. he'd had to go away for a bit."

Hermione frowned, "I thought you had a method to send him messages?"

Harry sighed, "I did, but it doesn't work when he's too far away. Actually I'm working on something similar that we can use to chat to each other during the holidays. Oh damn…"

"What's wrong?"

"It was going to be a surprise gift when I got it working but now I've gone and ruined it."

Hermione smiled, "The surprise maybe but not the intent. It sounds like a great idea. Do you need help?"

Harry managed a small grin in return. Maybe he could get through this.

-my-friend-tom-

"You're looking better Harry."

"Thanks Hermione." Almost a smile that time.

"Did you hear from your tutor?"

Harry shook his head, "Nope, just slept a bit better last night. He might have had to go further away than he expected. I'm just hoping he's okay."

Hermione reached across and grabbed Harry's hand with her own. "Hey don't worry Harry. You already said he was a very strong wizard. I'm sure he'll be okay. You miss him. I understand. How about we go for a walk? Clouds have finally let a little sun through and the weekend is almost over, we can postpone our Transfiguration study session."

"Sure. Thanks Hermione."

-my-friend-tom-

Classes continued. A series of study classes took the place of the DADA classes with various teachers setting additional open office times for students if they needed assistance, though mostly only OWL and NEWT students took advantage of that. Hermione talked Harry into leading most of the the study classes as more of a continuation of their self study group rather than focusing on book reading and Harry caved when the rest of the Gryffindors backed her up. It was easier to just give in and in a way he didn't really mind. It was a good distraction when every thing he tried failed. By exam time even the Ravenclaws preferred to take part in his challenges rather than hit the books. Membership of the weekend defence group, however, remained unchanged even though more and more people asked if they could attend. The refusals giving it more attention than they really wanted.

Classes turned into exams which passed all too quickly with only a brief break in the monotony when Harry found a few new wards on Flitwick's office. In a way Harry was disappointed that we was able to bypass them with a few days.

-my-friend-tom-

Harry gave Katie a little hug. They were no longer together but still good friends. Hermione had explained the breakup to him at a speed he could understand. The momentary disappointment that he had inexplicably felt when she had promised to remain friends had faded though the confusion still hadn't. When Harry had asked Hermione when he would be able to understand girls she had just laughed.

Still the hug was nice. Though not as nice as the one he expected to receive from Hermione when they reached the end of the journey. Katie was getting in early as she would be hanging around her classmates and there was a good chance they wouldn't see each other in the chaos of King Cross Station.

He certainly wasn't complaining about it. Especially since it no longer hurt to cuddle or hug. A few twinges in random muscles and the occasional irritating itch that happened at the most inconvenient times were all the physical damage left over from Voldemort's attack on him. Hopefully even those would have faded by mid summer.

With Hermione's help he had complete his first set of mirrors. There were still a lot of spells they hadn't got quite right and, since they currently had no ringing feature and required near simultaneous activation at each end, were only useful if they had arranged a time to talk to each other so, of course, they had.

His attempts to continue work on his many other outstanding projects had, however, slowed to a crawl. When he was alone Harry just couldn't find the motivation to knuckle down and study. For all the times he had complained about them, he really did seem to need Tom's continual comments and suggestions, even the snide or distracting ones.

He hoped that distancing himself from the heavy concentration of magic that was Hogwarts might hasten Tom's return. He told himself over and over again that there was no chance that the attack from Voldemort's spirit could have banished Tom's consciousness but that didn't stop the occasional nightmare where he saw Tom fading away into nothingness or a dark hole in his mind where Tom should have been.

After the hug from Katie and a few giggles from her friends the boarding of the Hogwart's Express went smoothly. He ended up in a carriage with Hermione, Dean and Seamus. After confirming that the others weren't expecting or cared for having any visitors for the journey, apart the snack cart, he hit the door with a selection of locking and privacy charms. The more advanced ones he attempted to do when Dean and Seamus weren't paying attention though really he knew he shouldn't be casting them in their presence at all.

-my-friend-tom-

The train journey turned into a long conversation about plans that Harry shrugged off with vague assurances that he'd think of something and some card games. For all that he had wanted to be away from Hogwarts to see if that helped Tom return actually moving away from the castle it actually felt like he was leaving Tom behind. It wasn't a fun journey for Harry that he put on a brave face.

At least the hug he got for Hermione before she left with her parents was nice.

-my-friend-tom-

"Sorry Tom," Harry whispered in his mind, "but you did say I should have fun as well so…"

There was no answer but Harry hadn't been expecting one.

Harry wandlessly caused a middle aged man wheeling a large suitcase to trip a short distance in front of the straw haired man. He hoped it was both close enough to cause him problems but far enough away that it wasn't too suspicious.

He glanced at one of the large curved mirrors near the intersection in the underpass in the station and was pleased to see his pursuers both stuck behind the blockage at the ramp down from the platform.

He suppressed his grin as he turned left into the tunnel and started dispersing the tracking charms to random passers-bys significantly weakening them in the process. A mild muggle notice-me-nots allowed him to quickly change his appearance before dropping the notice-me-not before any wizard could detect the more overt magic.

He paused and waited for the straw haired man and his companion. The companion was a much older man and thankfully just as uneasy in the muggle transport system as straw haired man. He was pleased when he had discovered Emmeline Vance was not one of his minders for the trip. She had been rather a nice lady and he would have felt a little bad about sending her off on a wild good chase, not that it would have stopped him. He hadn't asked to be followed and though he knew he was being a little unreasonable about his actions.

Still knowing that you are angry at someone for not being there when it certainly isn't their fault isn't the same as being able to accept it calmly. Nor enough to prevent him rebelling in, what were he hoped, harmless small acts of rebellion.

"Did you see which way he went?" asked straw haired man as the two reached the corner and stopped mere feet from him.

"No, I did not… By Jove! He's given us the slip." answered the now red faced old man who had taken a tumble as he tried to push past the crowd.

Straw haired man shook his head, "I hardly think it was on purpose, he's only a child. Let's find somewhere private so we can… " a short pause, "decide where we go next. He's a big boy and knows his way home."

The older man looked confused for a moment but a significant glance at the many people walking past from the straw haired man cleared up his confusion.

"Oh… right you are. Come on Podmore, let's go have a spot of tea whilst we decide where we go next."

Harry almost smiled when he saw straw haired man roll his eyes. He briefly considered following them but decided against it. He was sure he could do a better job of following them unseen but there were plenty of magical protections that could warn you if someone was paying too much attention and it was likely that their next step would be to apparate anyhow.

Harry returned up the ramp he had came down and hopped on the next train returning back along the line. He was only a few stops past where he actually wanted to change. He had chosen this station as it was a fair sized hub and one in which he probably could have lost his pursuers if magic hadn't been part of the game.

After a pleasant meal at an italian restaurant Douglas Boots returned to Diagon Alley after another, reportedly, lengthy period in Southern England.

-my-friend-tom-