Disclaimer: Though I hope to have characters of my own to write about someday, this is NOT that day. So if you don't want to read of my writing about other people's characters, there's a back button somewhere on the screen. Use it.
This is AU in that Harry meets the twins in London, rather than his first Weasley meeting being Ron on the train. Though I've plotted out through the second book's worth of story line, I'm not sure HOW AU it will get yet, but there are already key differences planned.
What if?
Waking up the next morning, Harry just barely remembered to gather the notes he'd made of how people had behaved in Privet Drive, where the Dursleys had spread their tale of where Harry went to school, and of the reactions of Muggle Londoners. He walked to the Slytherin table in the Great Hall, and would have sat in his usual spot, but First Years had taken it. Malfoy sat in his second usual spot, and if Harry had been a little more confident, he'd have told the First Years to move over. If he'd been less confident, though, he would have figured that it was a conspiracy of some kind. As it was, he sighed, and moved to the Quidditch Players' seats and plunked himself down.
As he was finishing the last of his toast, roughly all he had the stomach for at that point, the Slytherin team arrived. The silence of the rest of the table made the brunet nervous, and though he tried desperately not to, Harry could feel himself scrunch into himself at the feeling of the older boys staring into his back.
"So, Potter," Flint spoke up as he sat, across from the small second year, "does this mean you're trying out for Seeker?"
"I was thinking about it," Harry shrugged.
"Well, just keep in mind, your success will determine our playing style," Bole added from Harry's left.
"I'm really sitting here because my old seat was snitched by Firsties, and my other favored seat is occupied as well. I didn't feel like starting anything this early in the morning. Or this early in the year, for that matter." Harry reached into his pouch of supplies, pulled out the thin sheaf of paper, and sat, putting the pages into order.
"Potter, please tell me you haven't written a dissertation already," Derrick, on his right, whimpered in fake fear.
"Nope." Harry made sure the stack was even, then handed it to Flint, "Here. Make what you will of it. If you read it, and still feel the same, that's your decision. At least it will be a better informed one."
Bole smirked suddenly and asked, "Are you bitter about last year, Potter?"
"I'm working on it," Harry shrugged.
"Oh, so this is what you were threatening us with at the end of last term," Bletchley actually had the nerve to steal the entire sheaf from Flint as he sat on the Captain's left.
Shrugging at the theft, the Quidditch Captain merely settled into eating the food off of his plate, and peering at the Second Year with narrowed eyes, "What little I saw of that wasn't good, Potter. You sure you want us to see that?"
"I told you then I wasn't trying to make you guys into goody two shoes," Harry mumbled, "So I wrote down the good the bad, the ugly, the nitty gritty. Even the pathetic."
"Wait," Bletchley's interruption made everyone at the table listen, subtly or not, and Harry froze, "It says here that your relatives have told everyone in their neighborhood you're attending a school for criminal children. You mentioned that the neighbors thought that, but didn't say who told them."
"That's the story they've told," Harry nodded.
"I thought you were leaving bits out," Flint hissed, "You told us they didn't like you and you didn't like them either, but to tell lies about you-"
"They told me my mother and father were killed drunk driving." Harry stood as he spoke, gathered what was left of his things, and only as he stalked toward the doors, realized that he'd just committed himself to one of the two plans he'd made for the way he'd live this year out. Mentally shrugging, Harry crossed off the details of the second and decided to iron out the rest of the details of this one as he went. His first step would be class, though he would need to find a way to communicate with Professor Snape concerning the possibility of finding new lodgings after the year's end.
Just as the boy reached the doors leading out of the Great Hall, a hush fell upon the students as the owls flew in with their deliveries. One old, decrepit owl flew in front of Ron. Having spent a few weeks in the Burrow, Harry recognized Erroll, and was about to ask himself what message it could be, when it began screaming.
At the end of the message, Harry felt sorrier for Mr. Weasley than he had before, and made a note to write an apology to the man for not doing better to talk his son out of the idiot stunt. Shaking his head, Harry continued on to his first class of the day.
While he waited for the rest of the students to show up, Harry gave his Charms text a second glance over. He wondered if the professor was going to quiz them over the assignments from the end of the year or not. Finally, he noticed other Slytherins trickling in to the room, and Harry smirked at Malfoy, who had seemed like he was going to sit in Harry's old seat. He figured the blonde was going to do this in every class, and had every intention of fighting back. Not sure how yet, but he didn't intend to just take it.
The tiny man teaching the class arrived into the room shortly after it filled with students, and he hopped up to his podium and greeted his students. He, however, was greeted with groans because he informed them of the quiz he'd sent to their desks, to test what they recalled from last year. After completing the quiz, they'd move straight to their first Charm for the year, and go from there. As he moved about the room, he collected the assignments from the students.
Upon reaching Harry's elbow, the diminutive, yet bouncy individual whispered to him, "I have an independent project for you Mister Potter, if you'd like to take me up on it."
At the boy's nod, an extra page of paper appeared on Harry's desk. At the top it read: Read after the quiz. So, the boy followed instructions and finished the quiz first. Since he'd been reading his second year text ahead of time, Harry wasn't really surprised to see most of the spells on it. His guess, based on what he knew of last year, and what he'd read of this years texts, was that First year was spent learning the basics of the spells. Second year was spent tuning the strengths of those same spells and learning stronger varieties that carried out the same tasks. Such as the Hovering Charm, a more powerful version of the Levitation Charm would be taught to second years, perhaps after they gained more control over their use of the latter.
When he finished the quiz, Harry turned it over, and with a little thrill, saw the paper fly off towards the Professor's desk. Flitwick was the only professor that used that spell, so Harry had yet to get sick of it. McGonagall had her students pass to the right by rows, and then that column would pass papers forward. Snape chose to have each student bring their quizzes personally to his desk, and Sprout, on her rare paper quizzes, asked for students to drop them into a box in the back of the room or the Greenhouse. Though he couldn't remember the man's name, Harry thought the old Defense instructor would walk up to each student's desk to collect the tests.
Turning his thoughts from the professor with no name, Harry read the independent study suggestion from Flitwick and froze. Blinking a couple times, he reread it. 'Duplication charms are a complicated set of spells, usually taught in third year at the earliest. They range from the Duplicator of objects, to complex spells that simulate the Muggle process known as cloning. Your assignment would be to research all varieties of said family, and document their strengths, weaknesses, durabilities, and any legal repercussions of using them. This assignment would be a progressive one, and you will check in regularly to record your progress. By the end of the year, you will have enough information to decide on how long a parchment you want to turn in, and I will desire that you run it through several editors for spelling, grammar, and factuality.'
As he read and reread it, Harry became more and more sure that Professor Snape at the least, and perhaps even Madam Pince, whom Harry had forgotten to formally apologize to last year, were behind this project. It did intrigue him though, so Harry could easily see himself working on it. He could also see using the information to help in the projects with the twins. Seeing as he wasn't going to change anyone's mind on Slytherins with the track he'd tried last year, Harry felt it would be better to talk the twins into turning the prank projects to products.
His attention was drawn to the front of the room when the Professor began his lecture. Harry tried, really he did, not to laugh when the lecture turned out to be about Hovering Charms, but it was really difficult. Of course, at the same time, he wanted to cry, but that was a completely different matter entirely.
Apparently his attempts at not laughing failed, as he had garnered enough of Flitwick's attention to get called up to the front of the class. Hoping he wouldn't be making a habit of this, Harry gave the Hovering Charm a try.
The difference between Levitation and Hovering, as far as Harry had read was a matter of both control and strength. The former was meant for light objects, so control was of very little import. The latter, however, was meant to be used on things from the weight of a book, to the weight of a small child. Thus, it required more control. Levitation was rarely used on humans, while Hovering could be. Who wanted the person casting the Hover Charm on you to suddenly send you careening into the wall on your right?
Though it wasn't easy, and no where near pretty, Harry did manage to cast the Hovering Charm in front of the class. He felt a little vindictive pleasure at his success, since he'd been charged with casting one roughly a month ago, but hadn't ever done so until that day. The expression on his face must have changed, as Crabbe asked about it when he sat back down.
"What are you, er, smirking for, Potter?" The larger boy edged from him just a hair.
"Oh," Harry smiled, trying to take the edge off his expression, "Someone cast a Hovering Charm where I live this summer, and it was blamed on me. I hadn't ever cast it until today, and so it's nice to actually be able to cast the spell I was accused of."
A snort and chuckle accompanied this statement, as both Crabbe and Goyle enjoyed the humor and irony. Asked to assist his classmates, Harry worked with those two first, and by the time he got them to be successful, most of the rest of the class was as well, and the class was also over.
"I have to ask," Harry made sure Malfoy wasn't listening, "Why are you two still friendly to me, as obviously, Malfoy has decided to try to erase me?"
"Oh, that," Crabbe smirked as he packed.
"He's just gotten told he's supposed to rule Slytherin. Or take over from Flint. He took it into his head that it meant he was supposed to keep you hemmed in." Goyle shook his head.
"Ah," Harry shrugged, "He's welcome to the leadership role, I'm done trying to make you guys do anything. Now I just want to provide you all with enough information to make a decision on your own."
"Sure, Potter, and I'll believe that about the same time as I'll believe that Veelas are ever male," Zabini piped up from behind the smaller boy, though without any malice.
The next class, Herbology, should have been similar to the first, but for two rather important things. First, Professor Sprout was rather grumpily stalking to the Greenhouse, hands full of bandages, and second, Lockhart was trailing behind her, blathering on about 'the best way to mend Whomping Willows.' Harry thought he heard the Hufflepuff Head of House mutter under her breath about how he hadn't even been at Hogwarts when the tree had been planted so it was likely his first sighting of such a tree.
Hoping desperately not to be spotted, Harry stood very still, as he knew that fidgeting would only catch the magpie's eye like glittering, shiny things always do. Sadly, Harry's scar must have been glittery enough for the man, as he stopped trying to convince the Herbology Professor that he knew more than she, and suddenly veered for the Slytherin cluster of students with a grin on his face.
"I knew you'd try something newsworthy, Potter," his grin sent a chill through Harry's blood. The waggling finger didn't help matters any, but the man's face alone set the poor boy to wishing he could hide, "After all, you'd had to pass up your chance at front page of the Prophet glory with me, and no one wants to be shown up."
Sighing, as the man had obviously developed selective memory, Harry was about to correct the man as to why he'd not participated in the publicity stunt when Professor Sprout spoke up, "I do apologize, Professor Lockhart, but don't you have a class to teach in your classroom?"
The boys in the room smirked, chuckled, or snickered, while the girls gave reluctant sighs. Looking to his old class partner, Harry was rather disappointed to see that Parkinson was just like any other girl, and had been moon calving after the fop as well.
"Now, we shall start the year off with a bang, so to say," Sprout passed around a box, with the instructions that each student was to take a pair of earmuffs. She then demonstrated the proper way to place them upon one's head, and explained, "We will be repotting Mandrakes today, and as the cry of an adult can kill, I want you all in the habit of taking the proper care in regards to them. Thus, every time you are to work with them, we will be wearing these. Right now, they're infants, and their screams will only cause unconsciousness, but it's better to get into good habits early."
She demonstrated the proper way to repot a Mandrake and then told the class to separate into pairs. In a surprise move, Longbottom walked straight over to Harry and asked to work with him. Blinking, Harry acquiesced, and wondered how out of sorts Parkinson would be later. During the repotting, Harry took notice of how the Gryffindor cared for the plants, and was rather amazed at how well they reacted. He'd thought he had a pretty good understanding of plants, thanks and no thanks at the same time to the Dursleys, but Longbottom seemed to have a natural green thumb. Not that Harry was going to complain. It might even help him to work out the study group he was still hoping to implement between houses at some point.
When the Mandrakes were replanted in their soil and covered sufficiently that the earmuffs could be removed, Sprout continued her lecture about the properties of Mandrakes, their roots, and how to use their natural defenses to one's own benefits.
Taking notes as he listened, Harry almost didn't notice when a small note found its way into his pile of notes. When the Professor paused for a gulp of water, Harry stopped taking notes long enough to read the message, and began wondering why Longbottom would choose him of all people to work with on an independent project. Harry wouldn't mind the chance to personally pick the boy's mind more thoroughly on Herbology, and have a proper excuse for it. It was rather strange in the green-eyed boy's mind to associate himself with the Gryffindor who happened to be nearly hopeless in any class other than Herbology, though.
Quietly meeting the brown eyes of his new partner, Harry nodded, but wrote on the note, that he had 'a lot of questions to ask before making it concrete or anything.'
As the class ended, Harry was stopped by Longbottom handing him another bit of paper, which read, similarly to the one Flitwick had given him. 'There are a great deal of Mandrakes to be cared for, and as I am both Professor and Head of a House, I have very little time to tend to them. I would like to ask a few students to take care of them on the side of their own schedules. Each of these students will have a pass to do this observation. The pass in question will allow said student to be caught by Filch, a Professor of Hogwarts, a Prefect, the Head Boy, the Head Girl, or by the Headmaster up to twice in any combination, after curfew. If you get caught out after those two times, you will get into trouble as anyone else would.' It also had a jotted note from the other boy, reading, 'I asked if I could have a partner for this, and she said it was okay. Since you have helped me in Potions, I hoped I could return the favor for Herbology. This is supposed to boost our grades by at least one measure.'
With that, Harry felt it was fairly safe to accept the offer. Nodding again at the heavier boy, Harry scurried off to the Great Hall for lunch, hoping to stay out of Lockhart's path from there on out. Outside of classes, that was. He had no choice in regards to the actual time spent in class.
At lunch, Harry managed to claim a seat just outside of the Quidditch players' and was more than a little perplexed when Zabini plunked himself down to his left. As the smaller boy finished eating, he started to pull a text out, complete with notes.
"So, what's going on?" Zabini's question out of seeming thin air caused Harry to pause, blink and look at him wryly.
"I've been given two projects already this year, so I'm doing as much ahead of time for other classes as possible. I don't want to fall behind, you know, certainly wouldn't do to lose my Raven of Slytherin status." Harry scribbled more notes even as he spoke, wanting to avoid the topic he knew was coming anyway.
"No, I meant why are you giving up on your crusade from last year?" Zabini explained.
Having thought the feast from last year would have made that clear, Harry just paused. He then tried to find a way to say what he wanted to say without being too rude. After a bit, he gave up, and left the table, muttering, "Ask the Quidditch team if you really want to know, they can say it better than I can."
With the extra time on his hands, Harry made a trip to the dungeons, to drop off the extra paperwork he'd accumulated. While digging around in his trunk, Harry made sure to snag blank papers to take notes from the History text with, as that class was next.
After reaching the room where the ghost taught, Harry found his seat, knowing he was early enough to keep the same one, and opened the book. He began taking notes from the last point they'd reached in the text the year before and almost didn't notice when the class started. The only reason he knew was the huff from Malfoy as the other boy walked in, and found Harry already sitting.
He was so lost in his own world of notes that he never heard the quiet thumps of his classmates' hands and heads as they fell asleep. As he'd said to the goblins in Gringotts' he had no idea how Binns could make the goblin rebellions so boring, as it really was fascinating to read about the how's and whys of the wars. There were even cultural references in the stories, ones that he'd never heard of existing in Binns' lectures. Before reading of the rebellion of 410 C.E., Harry had never known that one could tell a goblin's rank in society -that of the goblins of course- by where the verb in their name was in translation.
Thinking about it, Harry realized that that meant Griphook was a different rank from Frognock. Since the book didn't specify exactly what the order meant, Harry could only speculate, based on his human understanding of bank ranking, that Frognock would be a lower rank than Griphook. He had to wonder, though, where Steelknife's rank fell, as Harry didn't think the first half of his name was meant to be a verb, but an adjective.
Somewhere along the way, Harry realized that the sawing noise in the room wasn't from the tales of the book finally coming to life, but from a sleeping student forgetting not to snore. This made him snap out of his consideration of the goblin rankings. He spotted Binns, who seemed to actually be hearing the snores.
"Since it seems that none of you are actually conscious enough to listen to the lecture," the ghost cut itself off, "I will release you earlier than usual. You will still be responsible for the material I would have covered today, so do study diligently." With that, it floated out of the room through the ceiling.
Debating the wisdom of leaving the class to sleep, Harry stood. Granger was also standing up to leave. He noticed that most of the class was also asleep. He suspected that the only reason Parkinson wasn't was because she'd been doodling in her notebook all period. Sighing to himself, Harry decided to have mercy on his Housemates, and dropped his History text onto his desk. The resulting noise catapulted more than a few students from their seats to the floor.
"Professor Binns dismissed class because someone was snoring loud enough to wake the dead," Granger sniffed.
"We're still going to be held accountable for what the lecture should have been," Harry grumbled as he finished packing and left the room.
Taking the time to make a dash for the Junior Marauders HQ, Harry quickly voiced the password, and slipped inside the room. Glad for the House Elves, Harry noticed the lack of dust immediately. Next, he spotted the sheaves of paper the twins had copied from the Alchemy texts. Warily stalking over to them, Harry wondered what state the book copies would be in.
Reaching to one, with a fake wand prototype, Harry flipped it open. After a few seconds, he dared to peer over at the actual pages, and groaned. He'd managed to copy portions of the first one, but none of the second, by hand before the year's end, and was now depressed by all the lost information. The pages of the copied text now read, 'These pages are copyrighted, and as a student I should know better than to plagiarize. Madam Pince has rightfully copy protected the pages of all books in her care. Violators beware. First offense is forgiven, but any past that…' Just the wording gave Harry the shivers.
He left a note for the twins regarding both the books, and the plan he was hoping to set up for their projects that year. Noting that it was nearing time for him to head to his next class, Harry quickly left the room, making sure no one saw, and dashed to Transfiguration.
In McGonagall's room, Harry noted that Malfoy had taken a leaf from his book and reached class early. Having plunked himself down in the seat Harry had used the year before, the boy had an expression on his face, that if Harry had been older, he'd have had the perfect name for.
Grumbling under his breath, Harry made sure there was time for this minor confrontation, and then proceeded to sit directly next to the blonde, as neither Crabbe nor Goyle had shown up yet. "Okay, Malfoy, this has to stop. You're not going to give anyone the idea that you're suddenly top dog of our year by taking my seat in classes. You're just going to show people how far you have to go to grow up."
"If you can't keep your seat, no one has any need to show you any respect, now do they?" the other boy drawled.
"Respect is earned," Harry snapped.
"And you haven't yet," was the response.
"What makes you think you have? For that matter, what makes you think anyone was showing me any undue respect?" Harry hissed, "This year, I'm just trying to give everyone else in our House as much information as possible so they can decide to dislike Muggles for something they know about them, rather than because their parents said to."
"You're really trying to make us like them, admit it, Potter," the blonde growled back.
"Actually, right about now, I couldn't care less whether you guys like them or not. I just don't want you to hate them as abstract concepts of inferiority. If you're gonna dislike them, you'll know something about them to specifically dislike." Harry rolled his eyes.
The eye roll was returned by his apparent rival. "Oh really? Prove it."
"My relatives told our entire neighborhood that I go to a school for juvenile delinquents. Rather than taking the time to learn any facts, -sound familiar yet- the neighbors chose to swallow the information like a juice drink, and all of them gave me sour looks all break." Harry grumbled. "For that, I can't stand the Muggles that live near me.
"Then why are you so determined to give us this information? I don't see it as helping your cause any," Malfoy seemed to actually be listening now.
"I've already said, I don't care if you like them or not." Harry groaned, "I just want you to dislike them for a reason other than 'my daddy said to!'"
"What makes you so sure that's my only reason?" Malfoy hissed.
"No one's ever said anything more than, 'my father said this,' or 'my mother told me that' in my hearing," Harry crossed his arms in front of his chest, "So all I know is that your parents say to hate Muggles."
"You've read the history books, you have to know what would happen if they knew about us," Malfoy thumped the desk in front of him.
Rolling his eyes, Harry countered, "Yeah, I've read the history texts. I know about the American's Salem Witch Trials. I also know about the European Inquisition. I also know that the Death Eaters' actions would only justify those reactions in the minds of the Muggles if they knew. If we presented a good face to them, they might not pull Witch Trials on us, or they might still do that. But we certainly aren't helping matters by letting people flip them upside down and whirl them like a washing machine on spin cycle."
"I'm not even going to pretend I understood your metaphor, Potter," Malfoy grumped.
Harry would have continued the argument with the blonde, but classmates were slowly trickling in, and the Professor was stalking into the room as well. McGonagall certainly wouldn't have allowed their discussion during her time. She'd have probably said it was better suited to History, or even Muggle Studies, not that the two boys yet knew the latter class existed.
Other than the argument, the class went on much the same as last year. McGonagall set them to changing chalk sticks into knitting needles as review from last year to start.
While the majority of the class fumbled through, Harry, Malfoy, Granger, and oddly, Zabini accomplished their projects quickly enough to be set to reversing the process as well. As she looped around the room, McGonagall gave tips and pointers to those struggling, and bits of encouragement to those who were making good progress. Of course, for students like Crabbe, Goyle, and Ron, she could only do so much, but still, the effort was the point, right?
As she passed Harry, a sheet of paper appeared on his desk. Grimacing at the sight of it, Harry began to wonder if there was a conspiracy going on. This was the third project he'd been given, even if one was indirectly. 'The process of Transfiguring inanimate objects to animate is a complicated process, rivaled by that of the reverse. Third years learn to Transfigure pincushions into hedgehogs. It has been brought to my attention that you managed this somewhat successfully. Thus, my challenge to you is to research this process further, and successfully transfigure an inanimate object into an animate one, that moves and behaves as the animal it should be mimicking. From there, it shouldn't be too much of a challenge to transfigure one animate creature into another, so the second half of the project is researching this process as well.'
Even without any other classes going this route, Harry saw himself spending a great deal of time in the Library that year, and was resigned to having a cramped hand to boot. Spotting Granger reading as well, Harry wondered how many students got such projects.
Finally everyone had managed a passable chalk stick to knitting needle and back, and McGonagall felt it was time to move on. "At the end of last year, you all began practicing Transfiguring larger objects into smaller, and some even began researching the process of Transfiguring the smaller into larger. This term we will begin that process again, and continue until it is fairly comfortable to all of you to make a chair into a spindle, or to manipulate a tea cup until it can substitute as an entire china set."
Taking notes as the professor spoke, Harry wondered just how much he'd incidentally skipped in his work with the twins. If he was going to be researching so much, and using it for Marauders' benefit, how would he find time for Quidditch? If he wasn't going to play, the team would continue as they always had, but that would sadden the boy to no end to see the work from last year going more or less to waste. At the same time, he had no clue how he would tie in two research projects, a plant tending project, research galore, practice, and detentions.
Ugh, the detentions. Harry just barely remembered in time to set aside his work that night for later. Finally snapping out of his daze, he realized that he'd been taking notes on autopilot, and hoped that he'd gotten all the pertinent information. Else, he'd have to ask someone else, and that would certainly go over well.
The class dismissed, and everyone streamed out in their various directions. Heading for the Slytherin dorms, Harry suddenly veered off, recognizing the twins at the doorway to headquarters. He snuck up behind them, and as all three slipped in, he tapped the twins on the shoulder, "Hey."
Whirling, the redheads yelped. "Harry!"
"Don't sneak up on us!"
"Sorry, I made a trip here earlier. Apparently, your little brother snores loud enough to get Binns' attention. So the ghost released us from class a bit early. On a whim, I checked out the books from the Restricted Section that we'd copied. The pages were replaced."
Going to the table covered with books, Fred pulled the sheaves of paper from the Alchemy texts, and opened it. "Oh, yeah. I forgot about that."
"Some of the texts in this library are protected from copying. Even if one intends to return the original, or cite the information properly, they don't allow a person to make copies by magical means. We should have expected that to happen, but we didn't." George grumbled.
"That reminds me," Harry pretended to have to dig through his thoughts to add to the suspense. "I have been asked to take on two and a half independent projects. One has to do with duplication charms. So, this all might actually help, as long as it isn't a painfully elaborate way to trick us into giving ourselves away as the pranksters everyone loves to hate."
"Wow," Fred mumbled, "You're getting bogged down."
"You're still trying out for the Slytherin's Seeker in Quidditch, right?" George asked.
"I was going to give it a shot at least." Harry nodded. "On a different topic, are you guys going to your detentions tonight?"
"When we returned to the school, McGonagall pulled us aside and told us she'd talked the Headmaster into erasing our punishment, but that it would continue as on record in the Ministry's files.
"Oh," Harry blinked, "Well, I didn't get so lucky. I have a detention tonight at the very least."
"Then we'd better get you off to the Great Hall to eat ahead of time!" Fred teased.
Rolling his eyes, Harry pulled his papers from his bag, except the ones he would need for the detention, and spread them out. "This is what I got from the books before they returned to Madam Pince in all effects."
Reading, the twins grinned, then looked at the clock. All three blinked, as they hadn't realized that the conversation had taken that long. They rushed to pack up, and scrambled through the door.
In the Great Hall, the three split up and Harry thought he saw the eyes of the professors assembled at the table flicker back and forth amongst themselves. This lent weight to his developing theory that the adults were trying to eliminate the pranks from last year. He reminded himself to try to talk the twins into turning more towards research, like they had begun the year before.
Sitting down, Harry didn't pay much attention to his surroundings, he was too busy thinking up how to work the projects into the work with the twins and class assignments. He was so lost in thought that he never noticed Zabini waving at him from the other side of the table. When he finished eating, still thinking, he stood and wandered his way to the Potions classroom, to serve his detention.
In the classroom, while he waited for the Potions Master, Harry pulled out one of the text from classes that day, and started drafting an essay. He was, in his own estimation, roughly halfway through when the door opened to usher in the adult supervising.
"Your Housemates are rather perplexed by your behavior in the Great Hall," a sliver of amusement shone through the man's voice.
"Oh," looking up, Harry put the paper, quill, and book away. He stood, and moved to the stack of cauldrons on the floor.. "Sir? Are you professors trying to do something specific with the independent studies?"
"Those are usually given to students who show a knack or interest in the field in question. Longbottom, according to Professor Sprout, is a natural in that field. Professor Flitwick is terribly impressed with your and Miss Granger's Charms work, and Professor McGonagall feels you would benefit from extra work in Transfiguration, what with what she's heard of your work with the twins."
"You're not going to give me a study too, are you?" Harry was both hoping for and against. For because he actually enjoyed working with potions. Against because he wasn't sure he could balance it with everything else.
"These detentions are serving as the independent study, Mister Potter," the smirk on the man's face told Harry all he needed to know. "Now, if you will begin? You know the routine by now, I should hope. Thus, words will not be necessary, I do have essays to grade."
The silence of the room after that was only interrupted by the occasional grumble from the professor at a particularly inept parchment, or by the low twangs and clunks of the boy dragging a cauldron around, or of two pots striking one another on accident, or Harry muttering to himself as the boy sometimes did.
"Mister Potter, I don't know if you realized this, but you are speaking to yourself about convincing the twins to work more on research and development of prank products," the words in previously silent air startled the boy. Luckily, Harry had just pulled his head out of a cauldron, so he didn't wind up with a concussion.
"Sorry sir," Harry bit his lower lip to keep quiet from that point, but found it really difficult to think about the subject without words. Finally, he blew out a breath of air in exasperation and mentally shoved that line of thought out the back door. He chanted under his breath the ingredients he thought were in the mess on his current cauldron until he got to a scrap of paper to scribble them down. He then reasoned out which potions could have that color with those ingredients and narrowed his list down. Finally, he wrote out a guess as to what the potion had been an attempt of, and passed the rewritten process to Snape's desk.
"Finished?" Snape stood and assessed the potion, "You missed the beetle's eyes, which makes the potion completely different, or would have, had the fools not allowed the eyes to dissolve completely."
Nodding, the boy adjusted his findings and guess, and rewrote it all again. Remembering that he had a lot of questions to ask the man, Harry began with the easiest, or so he thought. "Why would McGonagall talk the Headmaster into eliminating the detentions for the others?" Harry asked.
"Does it really matter?" The answer, while typical in its delivery, was unusual because if the man didn't want to answer a question, he'd respond with 'think for yourself, Potter, you're not a Gryffindor.'
After a bit of thought, Harry wondered if he was actually supposed to answer the question, and began to think about it. He supposed that if the others' parents had stepped in, it would make a difference. Or if they were doing more work than he was, but he rather doubted that with Ron, Thomas, and Finnegan. He knew that if they had tried McGonagall and Dumbledore could have talked Professor Snape into canceling the detentions as well, but the boy would have still taken the opportunity to get extra tutoring in Potions. It wasn't remedial, certainly, but any help he could get, since this was a class heavily geared toward practical work, would be useful.
"Well?" the droll question told the boy he was supposed to answer after all, but he had no more answer than he had when he'd asked his own.
"It does matter why for some reasons, but mainly so I'd know for sure it was another example of favoritism, sir," Harry rubbed the side of his nose under his glasses a bit.
"At least in Ronald Weasley's case, the detention exception was revoked," Snape continued grading as Harry started on his next cauldron.
"I'd figured as much," Harry nodded, "Mine probably would have doubled or more if I'd gone with him."
"You'd have been lucky to not be expelled, Potter," the man snapped.
"That too," Harry shrunk in on himself, remembering that half of the redhead's punishment.
Returning to his desk, Professor Snape sat, and began grading again. After a bit, near the point when Harry finished cleaning, he spoke up, "If you're still trying to deal with the favoritism, Mister Potter, I'd warn you to give up before you're disillusioned past the breaking point. Aside from that, when you've finished cleaning the cauldron, set it with the rest, and you may leave. Return at the same time tomorrow for your usual detention task."
Nodding, the boy followed the instructions given. As he was opening the door to leave, Harry turned and called out, "I had already given up on that, sir. Now I'm just going to show them as much information as I can gather on the Muggle world, so that the Slytherins know exactly what all the fuss is about."
"You might want to abandon that task as well," Not even looking up from his grading, the man countered, "you'll have the same luck."
"I have to do something sir, or I'll wind up so jaded about it all that I'll be just like Higgs and Flint, and the other Slytherins that have given up." With that, the boy skittered out of the room. He moved so quickly, he never saw the flicker in the Potions Master's eyes.
Hurrying to the Common Room, Harry gave the password, which was still 'Seguridad', as it started out being every year, apparently, and walked through the door. He was a little surprised to see the whole Quidditch team assembled on the chairs, and attempted to sneak past. He didn't want to interrupt their planning, though it was odd in his eyes that it would take place in the Common Room, of all places.
"Ah, Potter, just the boy we've been waiting to see," Bletchley called out, causing the younger boy to freeze in place.
"Yes?" Harry looked up, not quite meeting the eyes of anyone.
"We've got the Pitch reserved for next week," Flint stood from his chair and pulled a stack of papers from the table in front of him as he walked in Harry's direction.
"So we're having tryouts on one of those days. Higgs and Pucey graduated, so we need a Seeker and a Chaser," Warrington spoke up.
"We've been canvassing the Slytherins for interest," Bole began grinning, "but we seem to have only a handful of people who are even thinking about it. Malfoy's going to try for Seeker, Zabini's thinking about trying for Chaser, and we've got a couple of third years, and a fourth year also trying for Chaser."
"So, unless you want to guarantee Malfoy's spot on the team," Derrick smirked as he left his statement in the air.
"What time next week?" Harry reached out and took the papers Flint offered, and read them. After a glance, he recognized the papers he'd given them the day before. He put them into his pouch as he waited.
"Well, we were thinking of having it during the time between the last class of the day and Supper. We couldn't have it earlier because you'll be in classes, and so will everyone else. We can't have it later because of your month of detentions."
With a sheepish grin, Harry nodded, "Sure then. I'll at least try out."
The group as a whole moved to the stairs down to the rooms, and Harry put his belongings away in his trunk, sealing it with the Muggle lock he'd picked up over the break. He then changed, closed his curtains and went to sleep.
Harry's got more plans than he has time for at this point, and yes, some will fall through. Additionally, I chose to italicize the writings of adults and leave Neville's writing plain because that emphasizes the thought put into it. Or at least, that's what I want to convey.
Somebody catch me if I use Pucey's name in any of these chapters, outside of indicating he graduated. I'll fix it somehow. And as for whether it's the right year or not, oops. I looked up the HP Lexicon, but sorry, I don't have it memorized. I did though, get enough information to say that Seelie actually could fit into the Potterverse after all.
Also, I looked up Veela on Wikipedia, and it seemed to point at the species as being female only. If Rowling's use of them includes males, tell me, and I'll find SOME way to correct it.
I write to get the plot bunny out of my head. I post to get other's ideas of what is good, and what needs fixing. I'm out to enjoy myself, while I improve my writing, and as long as what you see me doing wrong is something I can fix, I will most certainly try.