I don't own Harry Potter
Chapter 2
Harry spent several hours reading but went to sleep early, at 11pm, then spent three hours asleep before waking at the ding of a magical alarm as it reached 2am. Immediately Harry climbed out of bed, wide awake, and started dressing in the last day's clothes: a magically warded t-shirt, a jacket and trousers made of Nundu leather and dragon hide boots.
Finishing with a glamour to turn his hair red and modify his face, Harry checked the parchment with the location of Grimmauld place written on it was still in his pocket – Harry'd duplicated it while walking in and given Lupin the fake to burn – walked to the window, opened it and jumped out, transforming into a falcon as he did.
After a few minutes freely flying, then a few more trying to work out where the hell he was landing, Harry flew down and landed in a tree by a park. Harry let out a single squawk and a hummingbird flew over, followed by a Lemur which thankfully – given how early it was – wasn't spotted by any muggles.
Harry dove off of the tree and transformed back into himself, turning to see the Lemur transform into Luna Lovegood and the Hummingbird into Lily Moon.
"Hey Harry" called Lily whilst Luna embraced him. Hugging Luna with one arm, Harry pulled out the piece of parchment with the location of Grimmauld Place on it and showed it to the girls who both nodded. Harry muttered "Incendio!" and his palm caught fire, destroying the parchment.
"So, how's Grimmauld Place?" asked Lily, bounding over and pulling Harry and Luna into a hug.
"It belonged to the Black family, they decorate the place with decapitated house-elf heads and the kids've spent the entire summer trying to clean the place"
"Like Caldroon?" asked Luna sadly.
Harry shivered at the memory of the bloodstained castle Megan had been locked in, under the rule of a being so cruel it was known as the Butcher King, even its own soldiers were scared to be in the same room as it lest one of its tendrils ensnare them and blast them with a torture charm three times as bad as a Cruciatus curse. "Well the heads weren't on spikes and the place is smaller but I wouldn't be surprised to see the bastard there"
"The real question is whether you have your own room" interjected Lily with a smirk.
"No, I'm sharing with Ron, although you could probably blow up the whole house and it wouldn't be loud enough to wake him but in all seriousness, you should probably stay out of the house."
"But I could come in as a Hummingbird" suggested Lily happily.
"What about me?" asked Luna in an exaggerated, childlike voice.
"I can sneak out often enough" reassured Harry, "they won't want me to but, honestly, what can they do? So we can meet often enough"
"You should probably use a letter code on your messages, I doubt any Death Eater would guess that your letters were turned from base 63 to 10 but they'd know it was number based, besides, you can write more in less if you use 27 to 53 with a lowercase, space, uppercase number set. Might as well switch the cases after that just in case. That way, no Arithmancer will even start to consider switching bases as they use weird runes or ancient number systems to make bases over 10, they'll just think it's a letter cypher"
"Fine" agreed Harry, drawing his quill and modifying the encoding spells on it. He pulled a piece of parchment and wrote To Lily and Luna on it, which became to lily and luna then clEIIYC aEBrZG and finally CLeiiyc AebRzg. Harry then touched his wand to the quill and moved it to the paper turning the letters back to to lily and luna.
"So, what now?" asked Luna.
"I think I have to stay at Grimmauld Place for the next two weeks, tell Neville and Megan not to kill anyone while we're away"
"They're not going to like that" said Lily with an evil grin, "they're already debating the best way to assassinate Riddle and Megan's suggesting we butcher people we know are Death Eaters until he's forced to break his remaining ones out of Azkaban, then leave a nuke attached to Bellatrix's cell door"
"That sounds like her" said Harry, running his hand through his hair and narrowly avoiding the flower Luna was attaching to it, "but that'd kill dozens guilty of nothing more that petty theft or pranks on muggles not to mention the Aurors on guard. Regardless, I'm pretty sure that his diary was a Horcrux so we've got to deal with them first"
"Do you know where they are?"
"Not yet but I'll be able to work it out if I can get my hands on one. If only Saurq hadn't gotten rid of the one in my scar," Harry sighed and checked his watch, 3:40. "I guess I should get back, from what I got out of Sirius, Mad-Eye will be back from guarding something – probably a prophecy or some kind of research on the magic which stopped Riddle from killing me – at four and if he comes back to Grimmauld place, he might use that damn eye to check if I'm in bed. We're lucky he didn't come to pick me up or he might've caught us with it."
"You say that when you've got two of the exact same magical eyes, only, slightly more convincing" chided Lily.
"Yeah, well, my eyes don't inconvenience me, his on the other hand… Well anyway, he won't be here tomorrow so we could always see each other then"
"Only see?" asked Luna, pouting whilst plucking another flower and intertwining it with the first one.
"Well, send us a letter tomorrow. See you" Lily leaned forwards and kissed Harry on the cheek before disapparating.
"Bye," said Luna, doing the same.
After they were both gone, Harry sighed, lightly grinned then hurled himself into the air, transforming into a falcon and flying back to Grimmauld Place.
The next week was relatively dull, other than Harry finding and pocketing one of Voldemort's Horcruxes as well as the times he slipped out as a falcon which, thankfully, the Order didn't notice. It wasn't until three days before term started that letters from Hogwarts finally arrived.
"Harry!" called Hermione, rushing into his room where he was reading a copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art – which, of course, had two dozen charms on to stop people working out what he was reading – to see if it had any information that could help him find Voldemort's Horcruxes. As the author didn't expect anyone to make more than one, there was nothing on using one to find the others but some elements of the ritual gave Harry ideas about how Horcruxes worked and therefore how to find them with the locket.
"Yes Hermione?" asked Harry, calmly lowering his book and looking up at her.
"Hogwarts letters!" called Hermione, practically pulling Harry towards the door. Harry carefully put his book away and wandered down to the kitchen where everyone was sorting through letters. Taking a seat at the head of the table, Harry picked up his letter and unfolded it:
As well as all previously required supplies, fifth year students will require:
The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5 by Miranda Goshawk
The Dark Arts Outsmarted by Quentin Trimble
Self-Defensive Spellwork by Arsenius Jigger
Operating Behind Enemy Lines by Harry Potter
The Use of Mind Magic in Combat by Lily Moon and Megan Jones
A Guide to Advanced Duelling by Filius Flitwick
Defensive Household Magic by Xenophilius and Luna Lovegood
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Modern Magical History by Cantankerus Nott
"Fuck" muttered Harry, reading his own name.
"I'm a prefect!" called Hermione, excitedly staring at her P badge.
"Congrat-" started Mrs Weasley before the Weasley twins interrupted her.
"Since when were you a published author?" asked both Fred and George simultaneously, staring at Harry.
"Err-"
"Who's a published author?" asked Mrs Weasley, looking to the adults at the end of the table.
"Harry"
"HARRY?"
"Fuckin' perfect" muttered Harry under his voice whilst everyone turned to stare at him. "Ok, yes, I wrote a few books over the summer"
"A few?" demanded Hermione.
"Luna wrote a textbook?" demanded Ginny.
"I'm a prefect" declared Ron.
"Who's Luna" asked Fred,
"Ron that's brilliant" called Mrs Weasley, rushing over to him.
"I've only published one" replied Harry,
"Ron's a prefect?" demanded George, sounding horrified.
"QUIET!" shouted Sirius over the noise, bringing the room to silence. "First, Harry, you're an author?"
"Yes" answered Harry awkwardly, decidedly not looking forwards to having the entire year read his work.
"When, how, what about, how many?"
"Err, this summer, with a quill, about combat magic and only one's complete"
Sirius took a moment to digest the information before turning to Ginny, "Ginny, who's published what now?"
"Luna, she's a girl in my year who's sort of… mad. It says her and a man named Xenophilius have written one of our defence books"
"Xenophilius Lovegood?" asked Mr Weasley, "the one who writes the Quibbler? He wrote a defence book?"
"That's what it says" answered Ginny.
"I've been meaning to bring that up" started Bill, "I read the Quibbler from time to time, especially since the Daily Prophet lost all credibility and recently it's started putting out, odd stories. Not only are most of its imaginary creatures now in space but it published a story on Sirius which got, like, the whole thing right."
"Well… that's odd" said Sirius, a moment later he turned to Ron and Hermione, "right Ron and Hermione are the Gryffindor prefects"
"Why not Harry?" demanded Fred and George, glaring at Harry like his not being a prefect was corrupting their brother.
"Don't ask me, McGonagall chooses the prefects"
"A lot of people are going to be angry about you and the Lovegoods having written the defence books" muttered Bill aloud.
"A lot of people are going to be angry about Nott having written the defence book, I mean didn't he write the Pure-Blood Directory" pointed out Harry, trying to move the subject from his book.
"It's widely believed he wrote it, we don't know for sure… But yeah, he almost certainly did," replied Bill, "but let's not get off the subject, what exactly is your book about Harry?"
Everyone went quiet and stared at Harry, who sighed and said "It's about how to operate, behind enemy lines… Ok, fine, I'll get a copy"
Harry rushed out of the room and up the stairs where he quickly scribbled a note to Luna and Lily, both of whom were staying at Luna's house, saying CIuJUfevnyfYTVOqmROYNXmb or what's up with the book lists, then grabbed a copy of Operating Behind Enemy Lines and rushed downstairs to where the Weasleys were promising to give Ron a broom and Hermione was discussing having 'The Art of War' on the booklists despite it being a muggle book sswith Hestia Jones – the only other muggleborn.
The moment Harry crossed the threshold, Sirius plucked the book from his hands and started reading it aloud to the room whilst stoically Harry sat in the corner.
"Disclaimer: I do not endorse the use of illegal charms, hexes, jinxes, curses or any other form of illegal spell or action. Any time that this book appears to suggest the use of illegal methods it is doing so in a scenario where the laws prohibiting the aforementioned methods have been temporarily or permanently removed, therefore making the actions legal. That seems a bit excessive given how dark arts books are normally legal but I guess it makes sense given the Ministry's campaign against you"
"Published by Luca Books. Copyright © 1995, by Harry Potter."
"Luca Books?" asked Hermione, "didn't they publish The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts by Arsenius Jigger?"
"How do you even" started Ron.
"We had it in third year Ron" snapped Hermione, "but they're a worldwide publishing company, how did you-"
"Have you considered that my book might just be really good, Hermione? I went to them because Fudge would strike down any exclusively British Company printing anything I'd written. I sent the book to the Australian and American branches of Luca books so unbiased experts would read it, they decided that it was a damn good book and so it's being printed around the world."
"The publishers and author would like to remind all news outlets that this book is protected by all standard libel laws and will sue if said laws are breached with respect to this book," continued Sirius, over the conversation before pausing and staring at Harry.
"Harry?" asked Sirius in an overly calm and serious voice while staring down at the contents, "may I ask exactly what chapters five, eight and twelve are about?"
"Mind altering magic, military heists and assassination"
"ASSASSINATION?" demanded half of the room in one discordant shout.
"WHAT DID DUMBLEDORE DO TO GRINDELWALD?" demanded Harry, "sure, he didn't kill Grindelwald but he almost did. Their fight wasn't Dumbledore defeating Grindelwald's entire army to get to him then beating him in fair combat. Regardless of the final result, it was an assassination attempt. That's how war works! If you can cut the head off the snake you can eliminate the entire enemy army without losing a soldier, on either side. What you're saying is that if I had a big red button which would instantly kill Riddle, I shouldn't press it, because what it's an assassination. This is why you were LOSING the FIRST WAR!"
"And why are children being taught dirty military strategy?" demanded Mrs Weasley.
"There is no dirty military strategy, military strategy is dirty BY DEFINITION" argued Harry before sighing and continuing, "By the looks of it, we're learning all combat strategy. Whether it be using a cleaning charm to cut someone's arms off by considering their arms as dirt – as is described in Defensive Household Magic – classical textbook duelling – as in A Guide to Advanced Duelling – or leading an army – as in The Art of War. Now enough of debating who wrote what, who IS our new defence professor"
Unfortunately no one seemed to know and Harry snuck off to bed early, not long after Hermione stole his book from Sirius, where he found Hedwig waiting with a small note, simply stating: PaBNwbUioJlWBdSRddaljbS.
Harry looked at the note and grinned, it was going to be an interesting year.
The note at the end is just the name of the new DADA teacher, you don't need to decode it to understand the plot.