Disclaimer: *sigh* the usual.


Chapter 29: All the Crazy Ones

Harry stared at the girl standing behind him, in front of the Slytherin table; a first year Ravenclaw with dazed blue eyes and dishwater blonde hair.

"You're...remarkably wrackspurt-free," she was saying in a soft, sparrow-like voice.

Despite her mellifluous tone, he had to frown at that - he really had no idea what it meant. "Is that...a good thing?"

"Oh, yes, quite."

Well, that was a relief.

"Oh, alright then. Thank you very much."

"You're very welcome. I'm Luna, by the way, Luna Lovegood."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Luna. I'm Harry Potter."

"Oh, I know."

He blinked. "Oh."

"Farewell, Harry Potter. May we meet again."

He blinked again. "Well, seeing as we're both Hogwarts students, I'd say that's pretty likely."

"Quite."

And with that, the girl skipped off, a dreamy smile on her face.

"Well," Theo said, swallowing a piece of bacon, "That one makes you look sane."

Harry frowned. "I am sane."

He was, wasn't he?

In response, Theo patted him on the back. "You keep telling yourself that."

Harry sighed as he placed some apple slices on his plate.

For less than two minutes was he allowed to eat in peace.

"Er, Harry?" Theo said, "You've got another one."

Curiously, Harry turned around and saw a tiny, mousey-haired boy who he'd seen trying on the Sorting Hat the night before, staring at him as though transfixed by his very presence. He was clutching what looked to be a muggle camera in his trembling hands, and the moment Harry looked at him, his face went bright red.

"A-all right, Harry? I'm – I'm Colin Creevey," he said breathlessly, taking a tentative step forward. "I'm in Gryffindor – it's my first year. D'you think – would it be alright if – can I have a picture?" he said, raising the camera hopefully.

"A picture?" Harry echoed blankly.

"So I can prove I've met you," Creevey eagerly explained, edging further forwards as he gained some confidence from Harry's acknowledgement of his presence. "I know all about you. Everyone's told me. About how you survived when You Know Who tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything and how you've still got a lightning scar on your forehead -" his eyes shamelessly swept across Harry's hairline "- and a boy in my dormitory said if I develop the film in the right potion, the pictures'll move." Creevy then drew a shuddering breath of excitement as a shiver racked his frame, and kept on going, "It's brilliant here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe it either. So I'm taking loads of pictures to send home to him. And it'd be really good if I had one of you -" he looked imploringly at Harry, "- maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you? And then, could you sign it?"

Harry glanced at Theo, who stuck his nose up in the air. "Not a chance."

Meanwhile, the girls were doing a very poor job of covertly scoffing at the boy. Parkinson might have coughed "mudblood" under her breath.

Harry sighed. "I'm afraid, Creevy, that there's been a misunderstanding. There's nothing particularly special about me. Not yet, anyway."

"Your scar -"

"Was given to me when my parents were murdered. I don't particularly like it."

Creevy's face fell, at that.

"If you want a picture of someone, why don't you try Professor Dumbledore? He's got his own chocolate frog card, you know."

Creevy's eyes went wide. "Really?"

"Or..." he smiled mischievously, "You know...Professor Snape has actually invented quite a few potions. He's rather famous in his own right."

Creevy's eyes went even wider. "Really?"

Harry nodded with a smile. "Don't tell him I said that, though. I'm afraid he'll be very embarrassed."

"Ok, thanks Harry!"

Harry blinked as the tiny boy ran off toward the staff table.

He turned back to the table to see a number of wicked grins. Greengrass was nearly cackling.

"You're evil," she breathed.

Davis snickered beside her. "Honestly, you're a terrible person."

Harry scowled. "Just this once...someone else can suffer for bothering me."

He looked over his shoulder to find Creevy being shooed away from the staff table by an irate Professor McGonagall. Professor Snape, in the meantime, was boring holes into the boy with his trademark death glare.

"Better be careful, Potter," Parkinson snarked, "You're starting to act like a Slytherin."

He frowned. "I am a Slytherin."

"That's what you think. I think this is the first time I've seen you screw with anyone, Potter."

Harry pursed his lips. "Yes, and I'm starting to feel a bit bad about it."

Parkinson made a great show of rolling her eyes, and Greengrass looked at him fiercely.

"He had it coming to him, Harry, the little twit."

Theo nodded absently "He makes you look sane too," he pointed out. "I guess this year got all the crazies."

Harry's frown deepened. "Do you really think I'm crazy?"

Theo sobered a bit, at that. "No...I'm just teasing you. You're not crazy...you're just a little...odd."

"Well I think you're crazy," Parkinson said from across the table.

Theo scowled at her. "Nobody asked you, Parkinson."

"Hmph!" she said daintily, sticking her nose in the air.

Harry plopped one last grape in his mouth. "We should get going, or we'll be late for Herbology."

Greengrass scowled darkly as she rose to her feet. "I swear, if I break a nail my first day again..."

Harry frowned. "If you don't want them to break then you should trim them shorter, Greengrass."

Greengrass's expression did a 180 and she smiled sweetly at Harry. "Call me Daphne, Harry."

Right, she'd said that before, he just kept forgetting.

Theo smirked. "Yeah, Daphne, maybe you should just trim your nails."

She scoffed at him. "That's Greengrass to you, Theo, if you're going to be an ass."

"Whatever you say, Daphne."

Daphne Greengrass hated Herbology, and was very vocal about it. Herbology wasn't Harry's favourite subject, either. Not even close, actually. Professor Sprout was a lovely woman, of course, but the subject reminded Harry a bit too much of gardening, which was fine at the Dursleys', but he wasn't too keen on doing it at Hogwarts. He had better things to do. And at least Aunt Petunia's plants never screamed at him. Still, the mandrake roots were kind of cute, in their own frightening way.

Predictably, though, the lesson ended with points lost for Slytherin.

"Seven hells! My fucking nail!"

"Miss Greengrass! I will not have language like that in my class! Five points from Slytherin."

Yeah, suffice it to say Herbology wasn't what he'd been looking forward to all summer.

No, what Harry was really looking forward to was Transfiguration – the single most challenging subject taught at Hogwarts, second perhaps only to Potions.

Harry loved Transfiguration – Professor McGonagall had a lot to do with this. The woman was stern, tough, and did not tolerate nonsense, but Harry appreciated that, and he thought the Scottish transfiguration professor had a soft spot for him.

"...the theory behind this exercise is exceedingly complex – I will not be testing you on it, but I do expect you to do the readings. And speaking of complex theory, I trust you have all had the chance to look over the readings I assigned at the beginning of the summer. The first spell we are learning is a direct consequence of Thrivver's Theory of Base Animate Transfiguration and the related methods outlined in section for 4 of chapter 1. This spell, simply put, transforms beetles into buttons. Now, perhaps a demonstration is in order. Mr. Potter, I trust you have already attempted this spell?"

Harry stifled a grin. "Yes professor."

"Excellent. Why don't you demonstrate for the class?"

Like Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall liked to call on him in class, often to answer questions and demonstrate spells that they had yet to learn; unlike Professor Snape, however, she did so without the desire to trip Harry up. After a few classes the professor had taken notice of Harry's interest in her subject, and seemed quite pleased by it; she'd also noticed Harry's propensity for working ahead of the class, and Harry could swear that sometimes she called on him just to give him a chance to show off. Despite the fact that he'd never failed her, she congratulated him on every success, which made him feel very pleased. Tom never bothered to congratulate him when he expected him to succeed...well, ever, really.

"Impeccable as always, Mr. Potter. Well done. Five points to Slytherin. Now, wands out everyone. We will practice the wand movements first."

"I can't believe I'm friends with a teacher's pet," Theo whispered to him when he sat down.

Harry smiled shyly. Truth be told, he didn't mind being a teacher's pet, if it was for Professor McGonagall.

Theo frowned as he practised the wand movement. "How do you hold your wrist again?"

Harry reached over and seized Theo's hand, turning it over and bending the wrist at just the right angle.

"Like that."

"Harry, can you help me with my wrist too?" Daphne whispered, voice saccharine, behind him.

"Daphne!" Parkinson hissed at her.

"What?" He could hear the pout in the blonde girl's voice.

"Yes!" Theo whispered hoarsely beside him, having accomplished a partially successful transfiguration. A small black button with short, stubby legs was skittering over the top of his desk.

Harry was about to congratulate him, when a small explosion sounded across the classroom.

"Again, Mr. Finnegan?"

"Sorry ma'am."


As Harry looked over their schedule for the day, he vaguely registered Theo shovelling more food onto his plate.

For a Slytherin, the boy wasn't very subtle sometimes.

"So, what do we have next?"

"Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"With Professor Lockhart," Bulstrode said dreamily beside him.

He heard Zabini scoff at her from the other side of the table.

Parkinson glared at him. "Do you have something to say, Zabini?"

Instead of answering her, he turned to Harry. "I assume you've already done the readings, Potter?"

Harry looked up from his timetable. "Yes, a couple of weeks ago."

The other boy raised an eyebrow. "And?"

Harry folded his timetable and placed it in between the pages of the fourth year potions text he had in his other hand, which was promptly plucked out of his hand by Theo.

"Eat."

Harry nodded in acquiescence, before turning back to Zabini. "I read all the assigned books, so I feel like I have a fairly solid impression of the material."

"And?" Zabini said impatiently.

"And it's, well, rubbish, I suppose you could say," he said as he obediently started to clean off his plate.

"Rubbish?" Parkinson nearly shrieked.

Harry swallowed the apple slice in his mouth. "Yeah, you know, rubbish - claptrap, codswallop, hogwash, nonsense..."

Zabini pointedly ignored the girls' sounds of protest and looked smugly at Harry. "What makes you say that?"

"They're children's books, not textbooks. I read them, of course, but they really weren't worth my time. I don't plan on looking at them again," he concluded simply.

Zabini smirked at him, seemingly pleased by his answer. Harry suddenly got the feeling that he'd just been used to prove a point.

Meanwhile, Bulstrode was staring at him, face stricken. "How can you say something like that?"

Harry shrugged. "Quite easily, I assure you."

"Self-important halfblood," Parkinson was muttering under her breath.

Harry sighed. "Just you wait. You'll agree. I give it a week, tops."

"Not bloody likely."

Malfoy, who was sitting beside her, was looking at her in annoyance.

"Anyway," Davis said beside him, sounding a little bit irritated herself, "Class is in five minutes – let's go."

Harry was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, to be honest. He was fairly certain that Professor Lockhart wasn't possessed by Voldemort or anything, but just looking at the man made him feel a bit queasy. There was something about the blonde, constantly smiling professor that rubbed him the wrong way, though he wasn't quite sure why. Tom seemed to think that the man was just a fraud, and just last night had been cursing Dumbledore for hiring yet another 'incompetent fool, a veritable muggle with magic' to teach them. Harry was reserving judgment for now, but that didn't mean he wasn't worried about the whole thing.

Professor Lockhart was waiting for them when they arrived at the classroom, and once the whole class was seated, the blonde man, dressed in silk, periwinkle blue robes, cleared his throat loudly and yet delicately, and the entire classroom was hushed at once. He reached forward, picked up Neville Longbottom's copy of Travels with Trolls and held it up to show his own, winking portrait on the front.

"Me," he said, pointing at it and winking as well. Harry figured that they were supposed to be impressed by this. Unfortunately, it would take a bit more than a picture on a book to impress him. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League and five times winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award – but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!"

He waited for them to laugh; a few people smiled weakly. Harry was not one of them.

He looked pointedly over at Parkinson, who scowled at him.

"I see you've all bought a complete set of my books – well done."

Excellent – so far, they were being appreciated for their ability to read their book list and go shopping.

"I thought we'd start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about – just to check how well you've read them, how much you've taken in..."

While he spoke, he made his way along the columns of desks, placing test papers on everyone's desks as he did. Once he finished, he returned to the front of the class and said with a flourish, "You have thirty minutes. Start – now!"

Harry looked down at his paper and started to read. He almost wished he hadn't.

1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour?

2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?

3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?

On and on it went, over three sides of paper, right down to:

54. When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?

Now, Harry was faced with an impossible decision, here. Would he sink to the level of answering these inane questions, with the answers that had been unfortunately burned into his memory? Or would he have a bit of self respect, and refuse to participate in this rubbish? His perfect record or his self-respect? In the end, he decided on a mixture of the two.

1. Professor Lockhart's favourite colour is Lilac.

2. If I wrote it down, it wouldn't be secret. I believe writing down other people's secrets is morally questionable, and therefore I'll refrain from doing so out of respect for Professor Lockhart.

3. Accepting a teaching post at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

All the way down to:

54. Gilderoy Lockhart was born January 26, 1964 and desires what everyone doe; happiness. I think that happiness would be an ideal gift for anyone.

This way...well, he probably wouldn't fail, but he still was not stooping quite as low as was possible.

Half an hour later, Professor Lockhart collected in the papers and sat down at his desk, crossing his legs as he began to rifle through the written tests.

"Tut, tut – hardly any of you remembered that my favourite colour is lilac. I say so in Year with a Yeti. And a few of you need to read Wanderings with Werewolves more carefully – I clearly state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic peoples -"

Harry almost snorted at that. Yes, that was likely. He could feel Tom scoffing in the back of his mind.

"- though I wouldn't say no to a large bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky!" The blonde man gave them another roguish wink.

So their professor was a ditz and an alcoholic.

Harry glanced around the classroom. Theo was staring at the Professor with a glint in his eye that could only be interpreted as horror by one who knew him well. In fact, all the male Slytherins were staring at him with some degree of disgust, though most of them were doing a good job of tempering it. The girls, however, seemed unfazed. The Gryffindors were not doing so well, though. Ron was now staring at Lockhart with an unmistakable expression of disbelief on his face; Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas, who were sitting in the front of the classroom, were shaking with silent laughter. Hermione, on the other hand, was listening to Lockhart with rapt attention, and gave a start when he mentioned her name.

"...but Miss Hermione Granger knew my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care potions – good girl! In fact -" he flipped her paper over, "- full marks! Where is Miss Hermione Granger?"

Hermione raised a trembling hand. Meanwhile, Harry looked on in abject horror. How could Hermione Granger, the most reasonable, clever witch he'd ever met, be taken in by this...buffoon? What sort of dark magic was this? For a dunderheaded ditz to so easily deceive every witch in the room...how was it possible? Surely they weren't all stupid...he knew that wasn't true. Some sort of ephemeral confundus charm that only worked on females?

"Excellent!" beamed Lockhart. "Quite excellent! Take ten points for Gryffindor! And so, to business..."

Finally.

He bent down behind his desk and lifted a large, covered cage onto it. "Now – be warned! It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here. All I ask is that you remain calm."

In spite of himself, Harry leaned around his pile of books for a better look at the cage.

Professor Lockhart placed a hand on the cover.

Thomas and Finnigan had stopped laughing now, and Neville was cowering in his front-row seat. His fellow Slytherin boys looked mildly amused and somewhat interested at this point.

"I must ask you not to scream," their professor whispered in a low voice. "It might provoke them."

As the whole class (well, half the class) held its breath, Professor Lockhart whipped off the cover with a flourish.

"Yes," he said dramatically. "Freshly caught Cornish pixies."

Malfoy looked like he was having a lot of trouble not making a sound, but Finnigan couldn't control himself. He let out a snort of laughter which even Professor Lockhart couldn't mistake for a shriek of terror.

"Yes?" He smiled at the boy, his smile looking somewhat strained.

"Well, they're not – they're not very – dangerous, are they?" Finnigan choked out.

"Don't be so sure!" said Lockhart, waggling a finger annoyingly at Finnigan. "Devilishly tricky little blighters they can be!"

The pixies were a bright blue and about eight inches high, with pointed faces and voices so shrill it was like listening to a crowd of angry mice arguing. The moment the cover had been removed, they had started jabbering and rocketing around, rattling the bars and pulling bizarre faces at the people nearest to them.

"Right then," Lockhart said loudly. "Let's see what you make of them!'

Harry didn't have time to react before the idiot at the front of the room opened the cage.

It was dreadful. Absolutely dreadful.

The pixies shot in every direction like rockets on New Years eve. Two of them seized Neville by the ears and lifted him into the air, while several others shot straight through the window, showering the back row with broken glass. The rest proceeded to wreak havoc on their innocent classroom, which really hadn't done anything wrong. The poor thing was being practically ripped to shreds. They grabbed ink bottles and sprayed the class with them, shredded books and test papers, tore pictures from the walls, knocked the waste bin over, grabbed bags and books and threw them out of the smashed window; within minutes, half the class had crawled under their desks while poor Neville swung from the candelabra in the ceiling.

"Come on now, round them up, round them up, they're only pixies," Professor Lockhart shouted merrily.

Harry scowled viciously.

Oblivious to his glare, the professor rolled up his sleeves, brandished his wand and bellowed, "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"

Predictably, the spell had absolutely no effect, and one of the pixies proceeded to seize Lockhart's wand and threw it out of the window, to boot. Disarmed by a pixie, Professor Lockhart gulped and dived under his own desk, narrowly avoiding being squashed by Neville, who fell a second later as the candelabra gave way. Then, thank all that is holy, the bell rang and there was a mad rush towards the exit.

Ron Weasley decisively slammed the door shut behind him once everyone had managed to escape.

"Can you believe him?" the redhead roared.

"He just wants to give us some hands-on experience," said Hermione snippily, nearly causing Harry to fall over in horror.

"Hermione, he didn't have a clue what he was doing," Harry tried.

"Rubbish," Hermione retorted. "You've read his books – look at all those amazing things he's done..."

Harry nearly gaped – Pansy Parkinson was nodding in agreement.

"He says he's done," Ron muttered.

And as much as his fellow Slytherins disliked Ron, he knew they were all agreeing. Well, all the males were. Greengr-Daphne, at the very least, looked conflicted.

Meanwhile, Harry could not quite keep the scowl off his face. "Did it at all occur to you that his books are exactly what they look like?"

"And what's that?"

"Fiction."

Hermione glared at him, along with the other girls in the group. "You're just jealous he didn't complement your work in class!"

That might have been the first time Parkinson was truly happy about Hermione beating Harry at anything.

Harry grimaced, and could not help but feel a bit disappointed at her response. "Is that really what you think, Hermione?"

She faltered a bit, at that.

Harry sighed and turned to the boys standing behind him. "Well, I've been thoroughly traumatized. I'll be in the library for the next 3 hours, if anyone needs me."

And with that, he marched off, eager to restore some order back into his life.

"Wait!" he heard Theo calling as he ran after him. "I'll come with!"

Harry blinked in surprise. "...ok."

"Can you believe that man?" Theo was saying as he fell into step with Harry, "Unleashing a cage full of pixies! What did he expect us to do with them anyway?"

Harry shrugged. "I honestly doubt he thought through it that far."

Theo scoffed. "Incompetent. Even worse than Quirrell."

"Well, Professor Quirrell wasn't actually incompetent – he was just pretending to be."

"You think?"

"Oh, definitely – you should have seen him down in the dungeons – he made a fine villain, actually."

"Huh – you don't say."

"Oh, I do indeed."

At that moment, a flash of red flew past them, running into Harry and causing a pile of books to tumble down to his feet.

Once he'd steadied himself, Harry looked down to find the youngest Weasley child shakily rising to her feet, hair bright red and frazzled. He reached down to pick up her books.

"Ginny Weasley, right? Ron's sister?"

Her eyes were wide and she was staring at him like a deer caught in headlights.

"It's nice to -"

He paused when he noticed one of the books she had dropped – a ratty old diary that looked suspiciously like his own...suspiciously like Tom's replica.

He frowned. "Where...did you get that diary? It looks an awful lot like one I have."

At that, she paled drastically, ripping the book out of his hands and running off.

"I'm telling you," Theo said beside him, "This year got all the crazy ones."

Harry tried not to show his discomfort. "Yeah, you may be right."

Thankfully, the rest of the walk to the library passed without incident. Once they got there, Theo immediately turned to Harry.

"So, what are we looking for?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know yet. All I know is that if I read anymore potions my brain is going to either shrivel up or spontaneously combust."

"Fair enough. Any ideas?"

"Well...next year we choose electives...perhaps we should do some research concerning what we plan on taking...?"

"I've heard Divination is an easy O," Theo commented as he followed Harry into the stacks.

"And definitely I won't be taking it."

"What? Why?"

Harry scowled. "Because it's complete nonsense. And if you have any sense at all you won't take it either."

Theo's eyebrows rose. "Alright then. I take it you're planning on Ancient Runes and Arithmancy."

Harry nodded. "You should at the very least take Ancient Runes as well. It's a crucial ingredient in studying fields like warding or spell crafting -" He paused, and then chuckled a bit. "Ingredients...I really have been reading too much Potions."

Theo rolled his eyes, before squinting and reaching to a shelf far above Harry's head.

A Broad Introduction to Runology (with emphasis on Norse, Greek, Hebrew, and Sanskrit)

Harry's eyes sparkled as he took the book out of Theo's hand.

"See?" Theo said with a smirk, "This is why you have to eat more. You need to grow big and tall so you can find the books meant for upper years."

Harry scowled at him. "You're not very subtle."

"I'm not trying to be."

"Hmm." He brushed passed Theo sweeping down another aisle.


"I have a bad feeling about it," Harry said into Tom's mirror.

Tom raised an eyebrow. "About what?"

"Ginny Weasley's diary. It...looked an awful lot like yours. It was...eerie."

Tom's eyes glinted. "Maybe it is mine."

Harry frowned. "I think I would have known if it was a horcrux."

Tom raised an eyebrow. "It's very old, and has been dormant for a very long time. It's probably quite weak."

"You think it would be so weak it wouldn't even register as another horcrux?"

"You've never reacted to the horcrux in the Room of Hidden Things."

"Wait! There's a horcrux in there?"

"Ravenclaw's lost diadem. It's hiding in there somewhere. It has been for the last 40 years."

"Huh...so...I might not be able to feel horcruxes that haven't had any human contact for several decades."

"Perhaps. It's also possible that the shock from your encounter with my master soul left you temporarily less sensitive to my other horcruxes."

"Then how do I know if the diary is actually your horcrux?"

Tom smirked. "Give it a few weeks. My younger self had a fairly one-track mind."

Harry paled at that. "You think...he'd open the Chamber of Secrets?"

"Oh, there is no doubt in my mind. If Ginny Weasley is in possession of my old diary, the Chamber of Secrets will be opened in due time."

"And then what?" Harry asked cautiously.

"Well, we sit back and enjoy the show, I suppose."

Harry grimaced, his stomach squirming.


Cue ominous music.

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