It wasn't one of the better Potions classes Harry had gone through. About two thirds of the Slytherins in the classroom kept making snide comments about Harry, mostly quotes from the letter in the Daily Prophet, and Harry wondered vaguely if any of them knew who 'Disgusted' actually was.

The actual potion they were making, however, was the bigger problem – an antidote to love potions, it required the slow addition of petals from six different flowers over the course of half an hour with continuous stirring. That was too long for Daphne to keep up the stirring by herself, so she and Harry traded off the stirring process while the one who wasn't stirring rested their hand for a minute or so and then got onto the rest of the preparations work.

Then there was the fact that they'd nearly chopped up and added forget-me-nots too early in the process. That was one of the things the instructions specifically stated not to do, and Harry had only realized just how much what Draco said had been getting to him when he was halfway through doing the forget-me-nots twenty minutes early instead of the maple shavings the potion actually called for at that stage.

Professor Snape's only comment on it, when he saw Harry dumping the half-cut flowers and starting again, was that the potion could well have exploded and rendered everyone doused by it unattractive to all members of their preferred gender for six hours. (Harry wondered if he'd forgotten that they were all still eleven or twelve.)

The whole idea of a love potion made him sort of uncomfortable, but a 'hate potion' – if it could be called that – was hardly any better.

Before lunch, Harry had enough time to look something up he'd been meaning to get around to, and which the letter in the paper had reminded him of – the oft-mentioned rumour that there were Werewolves in the Forbidden Forest.

At first that had simply sounded silly, as Werewolves were normal people – usually witches and wizards – who turned into vicious creatures every full moon. So how could you say there were some in the Forbidden Forest?

But a bit of searching found the answer, in a mention of a unique event that took place in Germany in the sixteenth century. Apparently a werewolf had become involved with a female wolf during the full moon (and Harry didn't really want to know the details of that) and the resultant litter had been magically affected by having a wizard for a parent. Fully as smart as the average human, they lived to this day in the Black Forest, though the book noted that the specific section of the forest in which they lived had been made Unplottable.

After reading that, Harry thought it was a pity that the Forbidden Forest was – well – Forbidden. It would be interesting to meet fully-intelligent wolves with Werewolf ancestry, sort of like the Werewolves in the Silmarillion, and maybe find out if they could cast spells.

Of course, he'd have to be sure they actually were this kind of wolf first. Maybe he'd need to learn German, unless this whole thing had happened a second time?

Or maybe all wolves were intelligent and wizards had only checked that one time. Like the wolves in the Belgariad, which were all perfectly able to hold conversations as long as you could speak wolf. Maybe most animals were able to speak normally so long as you knew their language, though if that was the case Harry had to admit he wasn't sure how to speak those languages unless he found a way to turn into one – and perhaps not even then.

Naturally, finding the answer was easier than that.

"Oh, them," Hagrid nodded, once Harry had asked. "Yep. They're a neighbourly lot, moved here 'bout five years after I got taken on as keeper of keys and grounds. Only a couple of 'em speak any English, and not much of it, but they wouldn't hurt anyone who didn't deserve it."

"You mean there's actual Werewolves in the Forest?" Dean asked.

"Weren't you paying attention?" Hermione chided him. "They're not Werewolves, they're something else."

"What do you call them, then?" Dean shrugged. "Wolves? But they're not wolves, they're something else from that as well. Maybe… um… lupines?"

"I know a feller name of Lupin," Hagrid shrugged. "He's not – well, best I don't say, to be honest, not mine to say."

"Maybe if I meet one I'll ask what they want to be called," Harry decided. "That seems like the only way to be polite."

He frowned, tapping a claw against his chin. "Why exactly is there a big magical forest next to Hogwarts that we're not allowed into? It sounds dangerous."

"Well, it's not dangerous so long as you don't go in," Hagrid replied.

"But what stops the dangerous animals from leaving it?" Neville pressed. "It's a forest, there isn't a fence or anything..."

"Don't rightly know," Hagrid admitted. "But it can't be all that dangerous, or Dumbledore'd have done something. He's a great man, really is."

"I suppose so," Harry said, still frowning. "It just seems like it'd be safer to have the forest somewhere much further away."

"It is a bit like Mirkwood or Fangorn, isn't it?" Neville asked.

"What?" Ron, Dean and Hagrid asked.

"Are either of you boys going to at least read The Hobbit at some point?" Hermione asked. "We duplicated you a copy each!"

On Monday, Neville showed them a copy of the latest Daily Prophet – he'd apparently decided to subscribe and sent off to do so by owl – in which there was a letter by a 'Concerned of Godric's Hollow' asking why, exactly, everyone was convinced that Harry Potter was a dragon instead of being an animagus with the form of a dragon. The letter pointed out that any Animagus was quite capable of adopting an animal form without the least bit of worry to their faculties, and that by all accounts Harry Potter was quite bright, while a human transfigured into a dragon (or a dragon who hadn't started off as a human) would presumably tend to be not much brighter than the typical dragon.

Harry did wonder why these people weren't writing in using their real names. He also wasn't sure if he was an Animagus or not, but what little he'd read about the process made it sound very complicated indeed and he was sure he'd remember it if he'd done any of those things.

It seemed like 'Disgusted' had set off quite a discussion, because over the next few days there were letters from 'Confused of Diagon Alley', 'Fuming of Saint-Mary-le-Bow', 'Lost of Outer Mongolia' and 'Elphias Doge' all expressing their own opinions on the fact that Harry was a dragon.

Confused wondered why exactly they thought there was a problem that the Boy-Who-Lived had a little physical peculiarity, since he was still the Boy-Who-Lived who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – a line of argument that left Harry wondering what exactly the name of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was as he still hadn't learned it. Then Fuming asked why exactly anyone was considering giving a non-human creature special treatment no matter the reason.

Harry didn't like that letter – not because of that sentiment, which he thought was probably sensible, but because it described him as 'insidious' which wasn't a nice thing to call anyone.

The letter from Lost took Harry four readings to fully understand, and eventually he decided that the author probably liked him. The letter took a view that was entirely against anything unnatural, but in the process of giving examples it moved from 'dragons with wands' smoothly through 'people who make house-elves do all the work' until it eventually reached 'and anyone who waves a wooden stick around to lift things into the air'.

It was probably a parody or something.

Then Elphias Doge asked why everybody was using all these puffed-up self-satisfied names instead of just saying who they were and what they thought.

While the debate was simmering away in the background, however, Harry still had classes to do and spells to learn. History of Magic was still dry, but Harry took notes wherever something was mentioned that didn't match up exactly to the textbook (which was fairly often, since the textbook was for most of their time at Hogwarts instead of just being for first-year and so wasn't all that detailed).

That did make Harry wonder if it would make sense to read a book about their current topic, to get a more detailed view.

Meanwhile in Transfiguration they continued slowly progressing in the field of Animation. There was a lot of work on the theory, and on different ways of making an animated object move – there were spells in Charms which specified what the object should have, like a pineapple gaining feet or a letter developing wings, but without a specific spell for it using Transfiguration to animate an object could mean making a choice.

Then the Professor used Transfiguration on five draughts pieces to turn them into wooden birds, and animated each one to demonstrate another aspect of animation – decision making.

The first bird just pecked at the ground every second or so. The second one sang a loud and complex song, but all it did was do that over and over until Professor McGonagall untransfigured it back to a draughts piece.

The third one would start singing when she tapped it on the back, then stop when she did it again.

"Simple instruction, complex instruction, simple reaction," their teacher explained, and tapped the fourth.

This one rose up into the air, flying about and circling her head, and when she moved it moved with her (she walked all around the class, letting everyone get a close look and listen at the singing, chirping bird) before finally stopping again when it was untransfigured.

"That one reacted to my movements," she explained. "And this one..."

Another tap, and the final bird started moving.

Rather than start singing straight away, though, it looked around – head moving from side to side in quick, jerking motions, a lot like a real bird.

Harry watched with interest as it chirped, took off, then landed on Parvati's desk. It began to sing, then stopped suddenly when the applause began.

"This kind of animation is a difficult art to master, because you have to think of how you want the result to act in any situation," Professor McGonagall explained, as the bird began singing again now the noise level was lower.

Ron raised his hand, and she called on him.

"Professor, I got something in a cracker last Christmas," Ron began. "It's sort of like a little stone griffin, and when I tap it with my wand it flies around and acts sort of like a pet. That's Animation of that last type, right?"

"Yes, Mr. Weasley," the Professor confirmed. "I know the sort. Bestiary Frakes of Diagon Alley makes them, he's really very good at making a long-lasting animated statuette of a magical creature or beast."

Seamus raised his hand. "Does that mean he could do a human?"

"Perhaps, but it would not act like a human," the Professor said. "Bestiary has a certain type of personality he gives all his creations, modified a little if they can fly, breathe fire and so on. But no, Mr. Finnegan, it could not do your homework for you."

"Darn," Seamus said. "Um, I mean, I never thought of that until you said it, Professor!"

Professor McGonagall just gave him a look.

"Professor?" Harry asked, next Friday.

"What is it, Potter?" Professor Snape asked. "I'm quite busy enough cleaning up before the next lesson, which will be the fourth-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Some of them have a modicum of talent, and I will not see your demand for attention ruining their lesson."

Mentally translating that into 'go ahead and ask but be quick about it', Harry nodded. "I was wondering if you had any advice about what to do about what's in the papers."

Professor Snape stopped halfway through getting out some scarab beetles.

"I would have thought you'd be delighted to be in the newspaper, Potter," he said, silkily.

"Not really," Harry replied. "I'm a bit uncomfortable with all of it… I asked Professor McGonagall and she told me to not worry about it because Professor Dumbledore was dealing with it, but that didn't really help."

The Potions Professor looked at Harry for a long time, without blinking, and Harry was glad to see that his teacher was thinking carefully about what to do.

After about a minute Professor Snape rubbed his head with his hand.

"Professor McGonagall is correct," he said. "The Headmaster will doubtless be doing what he can in his own way. Aside from that, perhaps you could cancel your newspaper subscription?"

"I don't have one," Harry replied.

Professor Snape did the looking-at-Harry-carefully thing for about another thirty seconds. "You… don't have a subscription? Then what is the problem, boy?"

"Well, Draco pointed it out to me," Harry explained. "And now Neville has a subscription to keep track of what's going on, and it all makes me really uncomfortable. I'd much rather graduate Hogwarts without being noticed much."

He shrugged his wings, and Professor Snape's eyes slid to them before going back to Harry's.

"You'd rather… not be noticed," he asked. "You. Harry Potter. The dragon. Would rather not be noticed."

"Exactly!" Harry agreed, glad that Professor Snape understood so well.

His Potions teacher sat down a little heavily, and took some potion from under his desk. Harry recognized it as the headache-relieving potion they'd made in the previous two periods, though he wasn't sure whose brew it actually was.

"Subscribe to the Quibbler," Professor Snape told him bluntly. "Doubtless if you use that paper as your source of information you will soon forget all about this whole business."

Harry smiled, thanking him for the advice, and turned to leave as his Professor had a quick swallow of the potion. The first of the next class was just arriving as he left.

It took Harry a while to work out how to subscribe to the Quibbler, because the information he could get hold of on it all seemed terribly contradictory. Everybody said it was complete nonsense, though Harry wasn't really sure yet how to tell that apart from the normal nonsense of the Wizarding World as a whole, but he hadn't realized that that included simply getting hold of it.

Asking around got him some odd looks and eventually pointed at a fifth-year who read it, and there were subscription coupons on the back, but they asked whether he wanted to subscribe for one week, twenty-six weeks or fifty-two weeks.

As it was a monthly paper, that was odd enough, but the price per issue was a quarter of a Sickle (which Harry was pretty sure meant seven and a quarter Knuts). Maybe it was like old money where you had to cut up pennies to get half pennies?

Ultimately Harry decided to just ask for a whole year, and sent three Sickles in the envelope with his coupon. It looked like that would mean he'd be getting his first paper at the end of the month, unless subscribing for a year included the one for February if you did it during February.

With that done, Harry decided to spend the rest of Friday afternoon reading Mossflower. Dean had lent it to him, and it was fun seeing what the distant past of Redwall was like – seeing Martin the Warrior as a mouse, rather than as a heroic figure.

Sometimes he read a bit out loud, even though the only other living thing in the room was Ron's rat. Scabbers had been pretty timid of him in the previous term, though it seemed like months of exposure had dulled that a bit, and Harry thought talking to him might be helping as well.

Over the weekend, Neville showed him another letter in the Prophet, promising that Harry would like this one.

As it turned out, Neville was absolutely right. This one was from a Mr. Lupin (who sounded like the same Mr. Lupin that Hagrid had mentioned) and Mr. Lupin explained in so many words how he had known James Potter and Lily Potter (neé Evans) and had met their infant son more than once. After that opening piece, though, he said that he would have had the same opinion had he never known his good friend James Potter – which was that the Wand Ban itself was short-sighted and poorly formed.

The proximate cause of the Wand Ban, enacted in 1631 before even the Statute of Secrecy, was that there had been a Goblin rebellion over the lack of representation that race had on the Wizengamot; in response, all Goblins were banned from owning wands in perpetuity, along with all other non-human magical races. The Centaurs were not involved in the rebellion, certainly, and no Veela or Kitsune was in the country at the time – and yet they were all punished as if they had been among the organizers, as are all their descendants and all Goblins to this day.

If your readers compare this to the reign of terror of the self-proclaimed Dark Lord, then one sees the problem – would we really suggest that all wizards should be banned from possessing wands as the result of the actions of You-Know-Who and his followers? But how much worse would it be if we suggested that the one who delivered us from the terror should be stripped of his ability to hold a wand?

It was all very poetic, and quite moving, and only slightly spoiled by the short letter from an 'Odd of Ottery St' Catchpole' underneath which suggested that in fact Harry was only pretending to be a dragon, and was in fact a perfectly normal dwarf wearing an elaborate costume.

That one was probably some kind of joke, or at least Harry very much hoped so.

Over the rest of February what passed for a normal routine at Hogwarts tried determinedly to assert itself. A few of the more unpleasant Slytherins tried to insult Harry, but he discovered that if they asked whether he was human it was usually sufficient to politely ask them if they were human, and if so to please explain how to prove it. (He still hadn't found an official, legal definition, and while he hoped that one or another of the people who said things like that would actually have researched it there didn't seem to be any sign of it yet.)

Aside from that, Harry attended his lessons, and did his homework fairly soon afterwards. Depending on club activities or how his close friends interacted with their other friends he sometimes spent time reading in the Ravenclaw Library, sometimes in the main Hogwarts library, sometimes in the Fort William Library and sometimes in the Gryffindor Common Room; at other times he practiced flying, both with and without his twin-broomsticks, and even on one occasion helped Professor Kettleburn catch an Aethonan flying horse which decided to try and escape.

He also wrote a tentative letter to Remus Lupin, and a few days later Hedwig brought a reply in which Mr. Lupin had enclosed a wizarding photograph of his mother and father.

They looked exactly like they had in the Mirror of Erised, except for being slightly younger than the versions in the mirror (and less able to turn into dragons, presumably), and Harry couldn't thank him fast enough.

Really, the only thing that was any kind of problem for Harry during the first school term of 1992 – apart from the odd knowledge that his presence at the school had sparked off a political debate – was that he still couldn't get himself a proper library card and thus take books back to Hogwarts from Fort William. It was especially a pity because he'd found a new author who he liked, with a main character who was a wizard called 'Pug', but it was taking him weeks to read even the first book because he could only do it while he was actually at the Fort William library.

Then, on the first of March, his first Quibbler arrived.

The Quibbler was… odd.

The cover illustration was quite remarkable, showing a dragon (which looked like a Swedish Short-Snout, but with glasses) eating an indistinct figure labelled as 'Prejudice'. It all looked very strange, and Harry opened the cover with some trepidation.

Inside there was a contents page, which included a section on Runes and two dozen articles as well as several double-page spreads which apparently consisted of nothing but pictures. Picking one at random, Harry turned over a dozen pages to see what the first article was like.

It was all about something called the Rotfang conspiracy, which was supposed to be a secret organization working within the Ministry of Magic to destroy it… by both Dark Magic and gum disease.

That didn't sound all that likely, but then eight months ago Harry hadn't known you could do magic at all. So he tried another one, which actually sounded much more reasonable.

This time it was accompanied by a picture labelled as being that of the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, buying an Invisibility Cloak in Knockturn Alley.

The article asserted that this was the fifth Invisibility Cloak that Mr. Crouch had purchased in ten years, and asked what it was that he had to hide. It seemed a bit bombastic, but it did sound to Harry like there was sort of a point to it.

"What are you reading?" Hermione asked, and Harry shifted the Quibbler to the side so Hermione could look at it as well.

She scanned the page, frowning, then turned it to see the cover. "That looks a lot like a tabloid, to me. My parents don't like tabloids – they're so full of nonsense."

"Maybe," Harry admitted. "The first story was about trying to destroy the Ministry of Magic by gum disease. But this one looks good enough."

"I suppose," Hermione admitted. "And it is good there isn't just one paper."

Harry turned to the next one, and they both stared.

"...that's saying that the Daily Prophet is trying to get you out of Hogwarts because you'd be able to stop the Rotfang Conspiracy," Hermione said slowly.

Harry turned another page, and found one which said that the hero Peter Pettigrew – posthumous winner of an Order of Merlin – was actually alive and living secretly at Beauxbatons.

"Maybe he's a dragon," Hermione suggested, and Harry snorted. "But really, Harry, why are you reading this? If any of it's true that's probably by accident."

"Professor Snape suggested it," Harry answered, tail flicking idly. "He said it would take my mind off the news."

He shrugged. "And it is kind of working."

Hermione looked conflicted. "How much was it?"

"I got a year's subscription for… about a pound," Harry said, converting the sickles into Muggle money in his head. "Maybe a bit less. So each one is about eight p."

Hermione still didn't seem to approve, as such, but she eventually left Harry with his paper – after reminding him not to believe everything he read in it.

Harry didn't think there was much chance of him believing everything in the Quibbler, not when it asserted in one article that he was actually secretly a Sphinx who was disguising himself as a dragon and in another that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had survived but had changed careers and become an actor in Muggle performances in London.

Even if that latter article had some surprisingly convincing photographs.

It was during the following week that the end-of-year exams first came up as a serious topic.

Oddly, it seemed almost like there was some kind of coordinated plan involved. Mr. Lupin asked how Harry was doing with revising for his exams, reminding him kindly that he needed to make sure he knew the material from the whole year, while Ron asked Professor Sinistra how much extra credit he could get in exams for knowing about Muggle astronomy and space travel (a question she actually didn't know the answer to, though she said she'd ask).

Professor McGonagall warned them all in dire terms that they would not be able to advance to the next year if their exams were failed, and that they would have to repeat the year, while Professor Snape seemed delighted by the same idea (though Harry was sure it was a way to make sure his students paid attention). Apparently it was even possible to fail sixth-year exams so badly that you had to do sixth-year again, and Harry didn't like the sound of failing a year – not for him, and not for any of his friends.

Professor Binns didn't mention it, but then again Professor Binns didn't seem especially motivated to interact with any of his students except for marking their papers. So to help out, Harry did his best to summarize the important bits of the events for his friends (though it took a while, and he thought he wasn't doing nearly as good a job as the textbook did).

"Are you staying here for Easter, Hermione?" Dean asked, as March progressed towards April.

Harry listened with one ear, the rest of his attention on keeping track of the sixteen basic wand movements. He'd heard that one of the things in the exams might be asking them to cast a spell they'd never seen before, just based on the wand movements and the incantation, and he wanted to make sure that he'd got them all exactly right.

"Why would I not?" their friend asked.

"To see your family?" Dean suggested, and Hermione paused.

"Well… you're right," she agreed. "Sorry. But I really want to make sure I do well on the exams, so I was thinking of staying here. I'm sure my parents will understand – they've both been to university, so they know what it's like to have a lot of studying to do."

"What's university?" Neville asked.

Hermione dropped her book, which clattered to the floor.

"What do you mean, 'what's university'?" she demanded. "Are there no magical universities?"

"I don't think there is," Ron supplied, from where he was looking through magically duplicated copies of Harry and Hermione's History of Magic notes. "You're supposed to learn most stuff at school, then after that you become someone's apprentice. That's why Bill went straight into being a cursebreaker, he's apprenticing under someone called… Rakepick, I think. Not sure if they're a Goblin or not."

"You mean there's no higher education?" Hermione repeated. "That's…"

She huffed. "Well! It's certainly not what I expected."

"Excuse me," Madam Pince said stiffly. "Please be quiet in the library for the benefit of other library users."

She inspected the book Hermione had dropped on the floor, finding that it was one of Hermione's own and not one of the library ones, and gave her a level glare before striding off into the stacks.

Once she was out of sight, Dean spoke up again – his voice lower this time. "I just really want to… you know, remind myself what the Muggle world is like. I've got no idea at all how West Ham is doing, last I heard was just after Christmas."

"It's a pity there aren't Muggle sports on the Wizarding Wireless," Harry said out loud. "Just for you and the other people who like them. I know there's Quidditch, but Blaise told me yesterday that the game between the Holyhead Harpies and the Montrose Magpies has been going since February. So I imagine that one's kind of boring."

"...actually, I kind of want to hear about that one," Dean snorted. "What's the score?"

Harry frowned, trying to remember. "I think Blaise said it was Too Much for the Harpies, Not Enough for the Magpies, and that both sides were advertising for new Seekers during the breaks of play."

On the last day of term before the holiday, Hedwig flew down to Harry's table.

She deposited a letter from Mr. Lupin, accepted some bacon in tribute, politely declined Harry's offer of a fork, and took wing.

Harry started opening the letter, but he'd barely unfolded it when Hedwig arrived right back at his place – this time with a second letter.

"Where did you get this, girl?" Harry asked, as she took some more bacon. "And, come to think of it, how do you always know when Mr. Lupin or Hagrid want to send me a letter?"

His owl clicked her beak, then took off again, and Harry smiled – deciding it was probably an owl thing – before opening the second letter as well.

It was from Professor Dumbledore (Harry quickly checked, and the Professor was indeed sitting right there at the high table) and it told him that in three days' time the two of them would be going to London for a hearing at the Ministry of Magic.

It was scheduled for the middle of the afternoon, but the Headmaster also told Harry that they would be leaving at 8 o'clock sharp to make sure they weren't late.

The password for the Professor's office was apparently 'Tim Tams'. Harry didn't have the least idea what a Tim Tam was, but he was fairly sure based on guesswork that it was a sweet of some description.

AN:

That's the rest of Harry's second term for you.

If Harry was older, he'd probably be getting more involved in politics. But he's, well, eleven.