I'm so sorry I took so long to update. I just had some problems and well, they're not solved yet, but I'm doing my best. As for this chapter, I just finished it and I have the feeling it's crappy.. But I just wanted to update something, so you all know I'm not dead and not giving up on this story ;) One last thing before you start reading the chapter (if you're even reading this, haha) I made a poll some time ago in which I ask if you, my readers , want someone from Harry's time to come find him and if yes, who. I made this poll, because some people wanted Ginny to come find him and I'm not sure... Well, please vote :) I love you all!

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Purple – red – green – orange – blue – pink – yellow – purple – red – green – orange – blue – ...

Harry blinked and continued to stare at the floor of the Entrance Hall, which kept changing colors every few seconds. He wasn't the only one that was mesmerized by it – a big part of the student population was staring at the floor. Harry though, was the only member of the staff that had really joined the students.

Filch was running around, randomly accusing students of ruining his floor – rumor was that Filch had tried to scrub the color away before everyone came to eat breakfast. He had clearly failed.

McGonagall was fuming and searching the crowd. Harry suspected that she was looking for the Marauders. Flitwick, who was with her, was happily praising the spellwork, making McGonagall even angrier in the process, though he didn't seem to notice that.

The majority of the staff had merely shrugged and had walked into the Great Hall to have their breakfast. The exceptions were Dumbledore, who had first spend a few minutes watching the floor with Harry before claiming to be hungry and leaving for breakfast, and Slughorn, who had been pretty angry, but had left because the flashing was giving him a headache.

Harry had to admit that it was indeed great spellwork. Having a lot of experience with how Hogwarts reacts to spells, he knew very well how hard it must have been to make this work. Not only that, but it was also cast on a big area. He had no idea how the Marauders had done this.

Harry frowned. It was also possible that this wasn't a spell on the floor, but just a layer of flashing paint. But Filch hadn't been able to scrub even a little bit off... So this was either a layer of Filch-proof paint or a tricky spell. Either way, Harry was impressed..

"Robert, m'boy," A voice to his right snapped Harry out of his musings. "why are you still standing here?" Slughorn was standing there, looking at Harry. Harry shrugged.

"I'm impressed." He said, gesturing toward the flashing floor. Slughorn huffed, making his mustache flutter.

"This is a violation of Hogwarts property," He said disapprovingly. "that's hardly something to be impressed about."

Harry shook his head and said: "No, you misunderstood me. I meant I was impressed by the spellwork, not the violation."

Slughorn opened his mouth, closed it again and looked like he was pondering about continuing this discussion or not. He seemed to decide against it, as he merely raised his eyebrows and gestured for Harry to follow him to the Great Hall. With a last look at the floor, Harry followed him.

"So, Robert, enjoying Hogwarts so far?" Asked Slughorn loudly over the noise of the Great Hall when they walked in.

"Oh yes, very much." Answered Harry while avoiding a running first year Hufflepuff.

"Good, good." Nodded Slughorn, marching up to the High Table and pulling out a chair for Harry. "Not getting lost too much I hope? Hogwarts can be pretty tricky when you're new."

"No, don't worry." Said Harry as he sat down. "All I really have to know is the way from my classroom to the Great Hall and that isn't that hard to remember."

Slughorn chuckled and grabbed a bun for himself and one for Harry. "It seems like you haven't been informed yet about doing rounds."

"Rounds?" Asked Harry, genuinely surprised.

"Yes, the professors, Prefects and the Head Boy and Girl do rounds in the evenings. Sometimes early mornings as well. The schedule for us professors hangs in the staff room and- Ooh, can you pass me that jam, Robert? No, no, the other one – Yes, thank you... Anyway... What was I saying again?"

"The schedule."

"Oh yes, of course, the schedule." Slughorn smiled broadly and started to spread jam on his bun. "I have to patrol the dungeons three times a week. Very nasty when it's winter, your toes freeze right off down there. Well, at least it's always better then having the patrol the Arithmancy corridor and the Astronomy tower. Climbing all those stairs is very tiring and you walk into students almost every time you go up that tower. Ah, to be young again! Back in my day I could be found up there a lot as well." Slughorn sighed deeply, making his mustache flutter.

"Er... Right..." Muttered Harry, averting his eyes. He so didn't need metal images of Slughorn on top of the Astronomy tower doing- Ew, no, he wasn't going to go there.

He waited until Slughorn would start speaking again, but he didn't. Instead, Slughorn started to eat his bun and stared at nothing in particularity, his eyes glazed over. He only snapped out of it after Harry gave a few pointed coughs.

"Ah! Right!" Slughorn seemed to shake himself. " Let's stop talking about old me, shall we? You, my dear boy, are still pretty young, aren't you? What's your age now?"

Harry considered adding five years to his real age, but decided against it. He had to lie enough as it was, better not add more lies to remember, especially unnecessary lies.

"I'm nineteen." He answered honestly. This answer made Slughorn smile widely for some reason.

"Well! Fresh out of school you are and already teaching!" Exclaimed Slughorn. "Are you planning to stay and teach here after this year or are you going to do something else? I heard you are a very talented wizard."

At that moment, professor Vector decided to sit down on Slughorn's right and asked the Potions professor something, giving Harry the opportunity to think. He had reached the conclusion that Slughorn probably wanted him in his Slugclub, even though he was a professor. He had never heard of a professor being in the Slugclub before though, but the way Slughorn was asking him questions indicated that he was trying to figure out if Harry had potential to become someone famous.

He bit the inside of his cheek, holding back a chuckle – if Slughorn only knew.

"So, what are your plans?" Asked Slughorn, apparently done talking to professor Vector. "He's a bit of an oddball." He added in a low whisper, jerking his head towards the man next to him. "Septima is a extremely talented and smart wizard and had plenty of opportunities, but he decided he wanted to be a teacher. Such a waste of talent."

Harry shrugged, still not really sure if he should lie or not. "Well, I don't know..." He started to say hesitantly. Slughorn's face lit up and he hastily added: "But I like it a lot here, so I might just stay."

Harry sighed in relief when Slughorn's face fell again, but, much to his annoyance, it lit up just as quickly again.

"Ah, but you're not sure, are you?" Asked Slughorn, looking like Christmas had come early.

Harry gaped at him. "No, I'm not sure, but-"

"Robert, m'boy, you do know you show a lot of potential, don't you?"

"Er... No... I..." Spluttered Harry, looking around him for some kind of excuse to escape this man and this conversation. He didn't like were this was going.

"You do, you do. Several students told me so!" Beamed Slughorn, like Harry should be happy about this. Under normal circumstances he would have been, but he did not wish to have Slughorn's attention on him like this.

"Oh."

"Great, isn't it?" Continued the Potions professor, completely obvious to Harry's stony face and clenched fists. "So I was wondering... I have these little meetings once in a while, maybe you heard of them? No? Well, I have those meetings, little dinner parties, with students that have potential to become someone big and I was wondering if you would like to come to the next one, perhaps...?"

"Er...I..." Began Harry, not really knowing how he could decline the offer in a friendly way.

"Brilliant! I'll let you know the date as soon as possible!" Said Slughorn happily, patting Harry's arm. "Well, I should go... Have to prepare my lesson..."

Harry had no idea how Slughorn had found a 'yes' in his response and stared at him. "But I'm not a student!" He said loudly.

Slughorn smiled at him. "Don't you worry about that, Robert m'boy, I'm glad to make an exception for you."

"But I don't-"

BOOM!

The sudden noise startled Harry so much that he nearly fell out of his chair. Before he could register what had been the source of the noise, he really did fall out of his chair. Something hard had hit him in the head. He frowned, massaging the back of his head. It looked like a potato. A pink potato with wings. Then it started to walk and it dawned on him – it was a garden gnome. Somebody had caught a garden gnome, painted it pink and gave it wings.

Why?

It was when a second gnome almost hit him that he thought of getting up. He almost immediately wished he hadn't. The whole hall was filled with pink garden gnomes, which all seemed to be marching towards the Gryffindor table and big red flowers had started to fall down. This was not the worst though, Harry decided when he looked up. The whole ceiling was red with golden words on it.

MY MOST BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECT LILY EVANS, WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?

He groaned and buried his face in his hands. This was unbelievable. His father was unbelievable. And Stupid. And a moron. An unbelievably stupid moron.

"Robert... Robert!" Harry looked up, right in the smug face of professor McGonagall.

"Yes?" He attempted to force a smile on his face, but failed miserably.

"I just came to tell you that you're going to lose this bet. Look." McGonagall gestured toward the Gryffindor table, where Lily had just stood up and was yelling angrily. To make things worse, it turned out that the gnomes were ordered to follow her around and sing sappy love songs to her.

"JAMES POTTER, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

Lily had apparently spotted James, who had been standing by the open doors of the Great Hall, watching her. After one look at her face, he did what any sane man without a deathwish would do when faced with a glare like hers: run. The next moment Harry found out that is was his mother he had inherited his speed from. His poor father wouldn't stand a chance, he thought, as he watched his mother run out of the Hall.

"Excuse me." Said professor McGonagall after a moment of silence. "I have to go give Mr. Potter another detention. Well... what is left of him, anyway..."

Harry watched her walk away, stood up and walked over to Dumbledore, who was calmly sticking one of the flowers (he now saw they were Lily's) in his hair.

"Ah, young love." He smiled when Harry reached him.

Harry ignored that comment and urged: "Please tell me you know how to get me out of here, sir. I don't think I can handle a year of this... this..." But he couldn't find a word to describe what he had just witnessed.

"Ah...I know several ways to 'get you out of here'. You see, I could just tell you to walk through these doors, which would technically 'get you out of here', but I don't think you meant it that way." Said Dumbledore serenely while gesturing for Harry to sit down. "Now what I think you really meant to ask was if I know how to send you home, which, I am afraid, I haven't figured out yet."

"Oh."

"Yes, well... You haven't even been here for a week yet, you will get used to it. Now, my dear boy, would you like one of these peppermints? They are quite good."

It turned out Dumbledore was right, they peppermints were pretty good and Harry really did get used to his father's odd behavior when his mother was concerned. Almost a month went by without much happening, which appeared to be pretty rare and made the professors uncomfortable. Usually, the Marauders did a big prank at least once a week, but something had changed. Harry had heard several rumors in the staffroom. One of them was that the Marauders were planning something huge, hence the discomfort of the professors, who feared for their safety and hoped the four friends didn't blow anything up (or, in case of professor Slughorn, hoped that they didn't plan to blow up the Slytherins). Another one was that they'd just matured (McGonagall had laughed for five minutes straight after she heard that one). Some other theories were that they'd lost inspiration, lost a bet or were too busy. The most likely one Harry had heard though, was that it had something to do with James.

He hadn't noticed at first, but something had happened between his father and the rest of the Marauders. They still hung out together, sat together in class and at meals, but it was different. Forced. They sometimes started fighting all of a sudden, James against the others. James also had the tendency to suddenly start to ignore his friends while they were talking.

An other thing he had noticed, was that James didn't seem to like him. Why, Harry did not know, but it made him feel so miserable when his father glared at him like that. He wanted to fix the relationship (which wasn't much of a relationship anyway, because they were only professor and student, as far as James knew) but how could he fix it when he didn't know what to fix?

Luckily, things went much better with his mother. She had the tendency to hang around after class and after Harry had stopped feeling like crawling under his desk every time he saw her, he found that he quite liked talking to her. She was a very interesting person, had strong opinions about everything and was not afraid to voice them out loud. What he also loved about her was that she was about the only person in the school who didn't flinch when he said 'Voldemort'.

That was really annoying in his opinion – whole classes that flinched, screamed or fell of their chair when he used the name. He had given all his classes the same speech about how stupid they were being and he continued to use the name, no matter how many times students asked him not to.

He suddenly smiled and shook his head. He wasn't going to think about that now, he decided as he greeted professor Flitwick. It was the fifth of November and he was going to see his father play Quidditch for the first time in his life. He smiled again, as the worries temporarily left his mind to be replaced with the excitement of his favorite sport in the world.