Inkwell

This story is set from the end of Harry, Ron and Hermione's 5th year (the fifth book, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix")through the Summer holidays and until, at the very least,. Halloween in their 6th year.

Disclaimer: I don not own the Harry Potter series, the characters used in this story are property of J.K Rowling

A/N: I am currently in the process of rewriting this fanfiction (even though I am yet to even finish writing it) because the early chapters do not fit with the style of the rest of the story and the narrative I want to create.

Feel free to read this fanfiction, but the content you read at present will be subject to change.

Thank you

~ CharmingMissSarah ~

Chapter 1

One evening near the end of school term, Professor Dumbledore sat in the high backed chair at his office desk waiting for his heads of houses to arrive. He rubbed tiredly at his eyes behind his half-moon spectacled eyes as he re-read the front page of an issue of last week's Daily Prophet.

Voldemort Dead?

Last night, a group of students from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry infiltrated the British Ministry of Magic. The Boy Who Lived led the group of senior Hogwarts students to interrupt a Death Eater raid on the Department of Mysteries where they were joined by members of the Order of the Phoenix. The two groups joined forces to overwhelm the Death Eaters.

Harry Potter joined by Albus Dumbledore faced down the Dark Lord as he tried to flee the Ministry. The fierce duel took place in the entrance of the Ministry in the early hours of the morning. Where a resourceful young Potter crushed Voldemort; by severing the chain holding a solid gold chandelier to the ceiling to fall on top of Voldemort, killing him.

Aurors arrived on the scene to transport the body of Tom Riddle to the St Mungo Morgue for magical autopsy. Auror members of the Order of the Phoenix such as Kingsley Shacklebolt had already arrested the surviving Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries.

Death Eater Penalty

This morning Aurors, following the death of Lord Voldemort are arresting known and suspected members of the Death Eaters. Many members of prominent pureblood families are being arrested such as Lucius Malfoy. He is currently awaiting trial with many other Death Eaters arrested last night. If these witches and wizards are convicted of being a Death Eater they will be imprisoned in Azkaban with the possibility of being sentenced to a Dementor's Kiss.

Escaped Murderer or Wrongly Convicted?

Information has come to light that known Death Eater and escapee of Azkaban Sirius Black was wrongly convicted.

The known fugitive joined forces with his godson in the Department of Mysteries last night as a member of the Order of the Phoenix. The pair joined forces to defeat the previously thought to be dead Peter Pettigrew. Pettigrew has been living as a Death Eater for the past 16 years after framing Sirius Black for his own murder after he assisted Voldemort in the murders of James and Lily Potter.

Sirius Black disappeared part way through the battle in the Department of Mysteries after coming in contact with a mysterious artefact only to reappear a few hours later in the centre of the Stonehenge. Reports say that Black apparated back to the Ministry of Magic where he was arrested only to be released on bail to await a retrial in hopes of being acquitted.

Albus Dumbledore had been busy over the past week, since being restored to his position as Headmaster, trying to Hogwarts to rights. He had removed all of the rules and regulations imposed by Dolores Umbridge and rehired all of the staff she had fired. He had been even been able to convince Remus Lupin to return to Hogwarts as the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor for the last six weeks of the school term. The Headmaster had had to repeatedly assure the professor that despite his being a Werewolf, he was a far better teacher than Dolores Umbridge had been and the student body would be far safer with him as their teacher despite his monthly affliction and would learn far more with him as their teacher than they had with Dolores Umbridge.

Albus had also researched every detention that was given that year and if the student was not deserving of the punishment, he awarded their house 10 points for each detention as recompense. He had then spent the bulk of two days, countless feet of parchment and three and a half bottles of his favourite green ink writing letters of apology to every parent for the conditions their children had had to live with for the past few months.

The following afternoon, Professor Dumbledore smiled from where he was standing holding Fawkes in his office as he heard the hum as the enchanted stairs spun the house heads into his office. He placed Fawkes down on his perch as he saw professors McGonagall, Snape, Sprout and Flitwick enter his office.

Professor Dumbledore greeted them before having them sit at a round wooden table in one of the corners of his cluttered office. He joined them in the fifth chair at the large table, telling them to get comfortable because he expected them to be there a long time.

"I'm sure you are all wondering why I gathered you all here this evening, during my time away from Hogwarts when Dolorus Umbridge was acting as Headmaster," said Dumbledore while Severus Snape snorted at the mention of Umbridge, "I came up with a plan to increase the inter-house unity. It has become glaringly obvious over the past few years the rift between the houses and the contempt that the Slytherins and Gryffindors hold each other. Since the death of Tom Riddle, the rivalry between the four houses has become unbearable. Our students cannot even travel between classes without fighting. On Wednesday Professor Flitwick had to break up a fistfight between Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley, two prefects in the corridors between fourth and fifth period. Professor Trelawney had to break up a duel between Terry Boot and Neville Longbottom during a Divination lesson."

"It's unacceptable," said Professor McGonagall while the other teachers nodded.

"Deductions of House Points and Detentions aren't stopping the students from fighting. If they want to fight, nothing is going to stop them," contributed Professor Snape, his dark eyes watching Dumbledore.

"You're right Severus," agreed Dumbledore, "which is why I see no other choice than to implement my plan. We need our students to understand one another and relate to each other and if possible become friends regardless of their houses."

"It doesn't matter how much we try to force them, they don't interact with students of other houses if they can avoid it," said Professor Flitwick.

"It's true," agreed Professor Sprout, "It doesn't matter if we assign partners. They won't talk to one another, some of them can't even work together without fighting."

"You right," said Professor Dumbledore, "that's why I believe the only way to promote inter-house unity is to ensure the students are anonymous and are paired with someone they will connect with from another house. This has led me to the conclusion that should assign students anonymous pen pals from another house so that they can get to know one another without any preconceptions."

"I believe that to assign each student their perfect partner," Dumbledore continued, " we should use a variation of the spell the Four Founders used when creating the Sorting Hat. That spell was:

Sorte thy Home

Sorte thy Brave from Scheming

Sorte thy Loyal from Clever

Sorte thy Houses"

He stood to retrieve a tall, midnight blue silk hat from where it had been resting on his desk and placing it in the centre of the round table where they had been sitting before retaking his seat.

"If you could please draw your wands and repeat after me, should be able to create a hat to designate the pen pal pairings." The witches and wizards trained their wands on the hat and repeated after the headmaster as he said:

"Combine thy Brave and Clever

Combine thy Loyal and Scheming

Join thy houses and homes and sorte thy pen pals true"

The hat sprang to life as their voices echoed around the room. The blue hat coughed, getting used to its vocal cords and new found movement before saying, "Hello," in a husky female voice from disuse.

"Please call me Pacifica, it means peacemaker which is what I'm here to do."

"Hello Pacifica, my name is Albus Dumbledore and these are Professors McGonagall, Snape, Sprout and Flitwick."

Pacifica and the teachers settled down to assign all of the students in Fourth, Fifth and Sixth years their Pen Pals. Each of the five Professors shared their memories of the students with Pacifica by drawing their memories from their temples using their wand tips and giving her the memories.