...And the 7th Year Student

The rest of the weekend following the ceremony felt like a giant party to Matt and the others. Neville was relieved that his closest friends did not end up a barbequed snack for an abomination with three heads. Matt and Ginny were simply happy Harry and Hermione were alive and unscathed. Matt almost never left Hermione's side and tended to stay away from higher balconies and stairwells unless unnecessary. Oddly, Hermione did not mind Matt being clingy, she found herself more relieved than anything the whole ordeal was over. She was more than happy to hug and hold onto her boyfriend. Harry could not help but stop by the Gryffindor common room several times, once after the feast and again for most of the day on Sunday.

He pretended it was under the guise of keeping an eye on his best students, but really, he just wanted Ginny, Hermione, Neville, and Matt's company. Harry had found his office less than comforting after fighting a dragon. Harry had noticed something too: Matt had gotten a few worried glances from some of the younger students and even a staff member or two. It was obvious that being in that cage had not been the best for him. He made a mental note to talk to Matt when he got a chance.

Monday brought on a fresh set of challenges for the group. Newspaper articles were everywhere, detailing the events of Halloween and the incident at the Ministry.

"Oh no…the Prophet…" Neville said over breakfast as he pulled the paper over. Matt had folded it in half and Neville saw something he had not, as Matt had yet to read it.

"What? It's just about our little misadventure." Matt replied as he and Hermione held hands and ate.

"No…I'm afraid not…" Neville insisted. Hermione pulled it over to herself and began to read aloud:

Hogwarts Heroes Potter, Granger, Weasley Defeat Monster in Ministry

By Padma Patil

The heroes of the Second Wizarding War Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all three of whom were set to receive Order of Merlin First Class on Saturday October 31, were viciously attacked at the Ministry of Magic. Before the ceremony for the three recipients had even begun, a sinister plot was put into motion. Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were trapped inside a converted courtroom with a monster. Meanwhile, Ron Weasley, who had left moments before, was trapped outside the courtroom as he was searching for his lost sister.

The younger Weasley sibling, Ginevra Molly Weasley, it was discovered, was also trapped inside, alongside suspected Death Eater and Voldemort supporter, American Matthew Lee Santini. Weasley was forced to attempt to break in to save his friends' lives. He fought valiantly alongside fellow Aurors and the Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt himself.

Clearly Weasley's efforts were instrumental in bringing down the dragon as his unmatched curse breaking skills came into action. The Weasley war hero broke the final spell on the courtroom which caused the beast inside to immediately perish. Potter and Granger had fought an incredibly difficult battle against a dragon with three heads and solid gold scales. However, were it not for Weasley, the lynchpin of the so-called Hogwarts Golden Trio, it is questionable whether either of the other two would have survived.

Weasley's efforts were richly rewarded as he was presented with the Order of Merlin First Class by the Minister of Magic himself. Potter was presented with his award by longtime girlfriend and rumored fiancée Ginevra Weasley, while Granger was presented with hers by none other than suspected dark wizard Matt Santini.

Additionally, it is believed Santini himself may have set the trap to lure in the three war heroes to finish off his master's work, using himself and the younger Weasley sibling as bait. The dangerous monster, it is believed may have been created in America and then smuggled here, only to be stashed during the conversion of the courtroom. Santini has known connections to dark wizard and magical creature smuggler, Joseph Pachi.

Authorities theorize that Pachi may have used dark magic to create the golden three-headed dragon and slipped it to Santini when he first arrived in Great Britain. Santini's appearance on this side of the Atlantic Ocean is highly questionable. There are no known travel plans ever filed under his name. Voldemort's forces were known to slip around the world seemingly undetected. Santini being brought here as a plant is more than probable given his suspicious close proximity to Hogwarts and Granger herself. Rumors indicate the couple are in love and plan to elope at the end of the school year. Assuming Santini does not follow through with his master's plan and kill Potter and Granger before the end of term.

This reporter was able to uncover stark evidence that Santini is no stranger to violence. He is reported to have collapsed the Ilvermorny greenhouses in his first year alone. To say nothing of the severe injuries sustained by students, which he blamed on creatures he claimed to have allegedly captured singlehandedly. But the trail of destruction does not end there. Santini was thought to have opened a cursed casket in the middle of his school, unleashing chaos which resulted in numerous students falling ill, becoming injured, and the death of at least a dozen school magical creatures and livestock.

Additionally, he was directly involved in the death of one of the school's most prominent staff members. Professor Raymond Stevenson, a pure-blood Wizard from one of America's longest and most respected families was pushed off the mountain that Ilvermorny sits atop. It is believed that Santini and Professor Stevenson had disagreements over Santini's allegiances and, in order to hide his true nature, killed the teacher in cold blood. However, there was not enough evidence to support this and with the Headmaster covering for Santini, he was never formally charged. It is this reporter's belief that a deeper look into Matthew Lee Santini is heavily warranted, for the safety and security of the Wizarding World.

Matt looked pained and bowed his head. Somehow, they had managed to not only spin the story to favor Ron entirely, while simultaneously diminishing Harry and Hermione's heroism yet still praising their efforts. Matt could not understand how it suddenly turned from a positive outlook to nearly outright dragging Hermione through the mud and destroying his own reputation in the process. Matt had worked hard to get through the first two months of school while showing everyone he was not this monstrous Death Eater the papers were making him out to be. To make matters worse, his darkest secret, the one story he had held back, was somehow brought to light. And not even the truth.

"Matt?" Hermione's voice broke through to him. He swallowed hard. The fears from a few months ago were creeping back again, the abandonment and isolation. But Matt chose to not run away this time, he held his seat, even though his mind was telling him to get up and run.

"Yes, Hermione?" he said softly, trying to not snap or lose his cool.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she said in a quiet voice. Her hand was covering his, gently rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb. Matt looked down and then back to her and took a deep breath.

"No, but yes. It's complicated." He replied. "I know it seems like I'm keeping secrets, the truth is, it just hasn't come up, before now. And I wanted to tell you about it, the real version, not that!" Matt said jabbing the paper with his finger. Hermione looked at him and nodded, squeezing his hand, reassuringly but not letting go.

"I'm ready, when you are." Hermione said and held his gaze. He looked into her brown eyes and found the strength he needed.

"In my third year, one of our teachers, Professor Stevenson, he took a liking to me. So, he tutored me, showed me things, and taught me advanced magic. Stuff well beyond where we were in class. He was testing me. After the holidays, the tests became harder, more challenging, cruel." Matt closed his eyes, trying to block out the worst memories. "I had to do things, things I'm not proud of. I thought I was learning." He took another ragged breath. "I had a Crup at school. I was trying to teach it to not attack No-Majes and No-Maj-borns. I thought I could maybe breed it out and get a more docile dog, essentially. Professor Stevenson, he, he was trying to make a Horcrux. He wanted to know if an animal could be used instead of a person. So, he taught me what to do and…"

"He didn't…" Hermione's voice cracked. Matt simply nodded.

"It failed, of course. It has to be a human. And of course, I stopped taking the lessons. He wasn't teaching me defensive spells; not like you said Professor Lupin did for Harry. No. He was teaching me dark arts. Cassidy saw me change after I killed my dog. She knew something was wrong, she was like you, in that regard Hermione. Couldn't get emotions past her."

Even though it was an awful conversation, Hermione could not help but feel a little proud of the comparison. She was not a copy of Cassidy by any means, but they shared certain traits and that, Hermione felt, was a good thing. She did not feel like she was competing, but improving upon what was compatible with Matt and what was not.

"Anyway, Cass went to the Headmaster and then he spoke to me directly. It was the first time I had really spoken to him one on one. We talked and he was concerned about Professor Stevenson's practices. It turned out, after the Headmaster did some digging, Stevenson wasn't this amazing guy he claimed to be. He was twisted and good at covering his tracks. And then the Headmaster threw him out."

"That's good, isn't it?" Hermione said, hopefully.

"Yeah, until the end of the school year a few months later. He came after us, me, and Cassidy. David was injured in a climbing accident he had on the side of the mountain. Something stupid he was trying and had to be rescued by the school staff. At least he took his owl with him. However, he left all his stuff down the side of the mountain. So, Cass and I…we went to get it. And so did Professor Stevenson. He was disgraced, it was all over The New York Ghost, how he had been performing dark arts on students behind closed doors, wiping memories and occasionally, killing a family member of a student to keep it quiet. He had lost everything and blamed me. He followed us down the mountain, he knocked out Cass. He was going to kill me, but I grabbed his climbing rope, and his spell cut it, instead of me. They found his body at the bottom of the mountain. Mount Greylock isn't exactly a steep or dangerous mountain, unless you don't know what you're doing." Matt said. He closed his eyes and took a breath. It was clearly a tough story for him to retell.

Hermione reached over and rubbed his back. She knew how hard that must have been. It reminded her of their interaction not long before, how hard it was to talk about her own torture. This was clearly similar for him.

"Matt, I want you to know something. I don't think you're responsible for his death. You didn't kill him. He killed himself. You were merely defending yourself and Cassidy. There's nothing wrong with that." Hermione said.

"Don't buy into the newspaper." Came a voice. The entire table looked up to see Harry sitting across from Matt. "I knew none of that was true. I feel like I've gotten to know you a little. And I know you're nothing like the paper says. Ron's nothing like what the paper says either, he's a right foul git for taking all the credit. If you need to talk, come see me."

"Thank you." Matt said quietly. Hermione wrapped an arm around his shoulders and leaned into him, affectionately.

"Just forget that article, mate." Neville said and crumpled up the paper.

"Yeah, we were there, we know what happened. So does the whole school. Hopefully, they'll all see through Padma's lies. I can't believe she's taken up Rita Skeeter's work." Ginny said.

"If this gets worse, I have a trump card to play." Hermione said cryptically. Matt felt better, knowing the people he cared about the most were on his side.

Professor Sharp was less forgiving than Matt would have hoped. Transfiguration had become a dreaded subject even for Hermione who excelled at the class and, while occasionally needing to ask for additional instruction, usually mastered the spells within a few attempts. Sharp seemed ok with this but was always quick to admonish Matt if he was not quicker than Hermione.

"It would seem that the two of you cannot seem to keep yourselves out of the paper." Sharp said to Matt and Hermione as class was wrapping up.

"It's not like we go-" Matt began to reply but was cut off.

"Looking for it? No? What then, it just seems to come to you, naturally. I wish your studies would come to you so easily!" Sharp said smacking the desk in front of Matt with the Daily Prophet. "Now, I will admit, you hardly appear talented enough to be a Death Eater, but I would believe you causing mayhem at your old school. You seem to have a knack for it, even here. Triple headed dragons indeed!"

"Professor, you were there-" Hermione began.

"Another word out of you, and it'll be a week's worth of detention, Ms. Granger. And it won't be with that friend of yours, Hagrid either!" Sharp said as Hermione bowed her head in silence. "I was there, as you are so keen to point out. And yes, I saw that, that thing. Do you know what else I saw?"

Matt shook his head.

"I saw a so-called Gryffindor, locked in a cage and cowering! Unable to free himself or his friend. Simply yelling at his girlfriend, to do all the work, while he sniveled like a child who's too spoilt to do any good!" Sharp snapped. "Your work was substandard today, Santini. I think a week's worth of detention would be a good remedy to that. In addition, I've finally seen your records." Sharp said with a smile. He finally had something on Matt, like he had been looking for. "You're an above average student, seems to be somewhat reflected here. However, there are no flying lessons anywhere. In order to graduate from Hogwarts, you are required to pass a flying test. It's given to all first-year students. I'm sure it'll be no trouble for someone as capable as you. Especially since you've already got a body count." Sharp said the last part with particular savagery.

Matt was silent as he and Hermione walked to the Great Hall for lunch.

"It'll be ok." Hermione tried to comfort him. She felt like a coward, not being able to stand up to Professor Sharp. While she was glad to have avoided detention, she did not like the fact that it was simply passed to her boyfriend instead. Not having him to study and talk to would be as good as serving a detention. It felt like somehow Sharp knew that and that was why he picked on Matt. She knew Matt would feel terrible if she were punished and would do anything to stop it. If this kept up though, Hermione would not let him go through it alone, even if it meant cleaning bed pans in the Hospital Wing without magic, right alongside him.

"Hermione, I'm scared to death of heights, how am I going to pass a flying test? I can't fly." Matt said and moaned as they sat down.

"I'll think of something." Hermione said. Matt smiled; he knew she would too. The tone of her voice held that determination. Hermione looked to the staff table and saw the solution to the problem, sitting to the right of McGonagall in the chair reserved for the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Harry Potter.