A Failed Retirement
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
XXX
Harry looked around at those gathered.
He'd saved them all, vanquished the evil one, saved whatever damsels there was left to save, won the hearts of pretty much everything – there was a rumor that centaurs had been spotted fighting over his autograph – and his life-long dream of living a quiet life had pretty much completely gone down the drain.
Dammit. Why did these kinds of things always happen to him?
The Minister stepped down from the podium, gesturing for him to speak.
Harry hated giving speeches. Moving the troops in the middle of a war, he could do that, no problem. Speaking to the masses in peace-time? He'd rather fight another basilisk. He was good at that, it was really very simple, put the pointy thing in the really really really small sensitive spot that lead straight into the thing's brain.
It was odd, he supposed. A lot of people tended to look at him oddly once they realized that he was being absolutely serious about that. Sure it was a pretty small target, and you couldn't really aim at it due to the snake's eyes, and there was a high chance of getting bit with fangs covered in the most potent venom in existence, but at least it was easy to know if he was doing it right, and what he was supposed to do if he wasn't. Simple.
Grumbling softly to himself about annoying politics, Harry took the stage.
"Hello." He started, knowing that he was probably doing something wrong, but really not having a clue as to what it might be. "I-..." He was supposed to be introducing some new law, explain to them all that this was a law that their hero believed in, and that they as such should believe in it too.
He couldn't remember which law it was.
He didn't care about politics, he hadn't really cared about any of the laws that they'd been driving home for the last few years. Not that they were bad laws, or that there were too many blatant loopholes that only purebloods could sneak through, it was just a general numbness that had been settling over him ever since he'd run out of Hermione's original laws.
God, he missed her. If ever there was a girl that could've changed the entire world, that would've been her.
If Voldemort somehow managed to come back a third time, he would have to remember to make his demise more painful this time. Bloody git.
Still, with Voldemort removing the one girl whose beliefs he believed in – even if he thought that she might've been pushing a bit too hard at times, cough, SPEW, cough – he'd simply lost interest in changing how the system worked. Of course, that didn't mean that he hadn't helped along every project of hers that he could find, but ever since he'd run out, it seemed like he was merely going through the motions.
Damn, he was supposed to be speaking about the law. Which law was it?
"I-..." He paused, frowning. "I kind of don't feel like doing this anymore." He admitted honestly. "I had a very good friend who wanted to change the world, and I believe she had a point. But, she's gone, and this was her dream." He looked up at the sky – there were always too many people listening to his speeches for them to be held within a building – a wry smile twitching at his lips. "Three of us. One wanted to change the world, one wanted to be famous, and I just wanted... freedom." He sighed.
Sweeping his gaze across the gathered, still cheerfully ignoring the minister, he wondered what he really ought to be doing. He drew a blank.
"I'm not free. I'm famous. I can't go anywhere without running into fans, important people keep asking me for advice, and can anyone ever actually imagine me working at some kind of job?" He snorted at the thought. "I'm stuck. I don't blame you for it, it's not your fault, but that doesn't make me any less stuck."
The audience looked very unsettled about this speech that nobody had predicted – nobody except a certain Hermione Granger watching it all on her Heavenly Definition TV and using her house elf Draco Malfoy as a footrest whilst sipping on her angelic butterbeer – but Harry couldn't really bring himself to care.
"I think... I'm going to retire." He chuckled. "I suppose this will be the last you'll see me. Take care of yourselves." He looked across the people, smiling mischievously. "Bye."
Then, with a loud crack, he was gone.
The Minister of Magic wasn't pleased, the people were only panicking slightly, and everyone lived a pretty much happy life from that day onwards.
XXX
It'd taken almost two years of research, but he was done. He'd finally found a way to get a permanent retirement from his heroic-ness, instead of dodging people and living almost entirely in the muggle world.
It was perfect.
A new name. A new face. A new world.
That last one had been forcefully added once he'd realized that even with a new face and name, he would still either be recognized or end up saving some damsel in distress wherever he went – proving that it really was just his own damn luck and his resurfacing 'saving people'-thing. Basically, he needed to go somewhere really really far away to avoid this annoying problem of his.
Thus, a new world. Which was why he'd been researching for the last two years.
Suppressing the urge to cackle manically – Luna had gotten to him in his seventh year of Hogwarts, and had been very insistent on their maniacal-cackling-contests – he instead got started on writing out the magical circle needed with a mixture of chalk and his own blood. Harry didn't enjoy writing in his own blood, he had gotten this kind of nasty scar on hi hand from doing just that earlier on in his life, but it was a necessity in this case.
Finishing the circle – which had a lot of shapes that really wasn't round within it – he stood up, moved to the center of the circle-thing, grabbed his wand tightly, and started pouring as much magic as he could into the ritual.
This was going to take a lot.
The circle lit up, the shapes within it spinning softly in a pattern that hurt the eyes to look at, and then fire raced through his veins, it felt like he was breathing ice, and his own voice which had been chanting the incantation was joined by what sounded a lot like a choir of something that probably weren't human.
Pain, dizziness, confusion, determination, exhilaration, horror, joy, nervousness. They all mixed into one, and then he blacked out.
XXX
The sky was really blue.
The fluffy white clouds looked kind of summer-ish, and he could see the green of grass through the corner of his eyes.
Wherever he was, it wasn't at the house he'd done the ritual. Because, even if the ritual had managed to fail horribly he wouldn't have been living in the grass but rather a giant crater. He was pleased by this.
He wasn't quite so pleased to note that his body burned like a weak Crucio, but beggars can't be choosers.
Struggling into a sitting position, he tried to figure out just where he'd ended up landing.
There was a slight chance that he'd accidentally gone to all of that trouble just to end up in America, but he'd been quite certain that that wouldn't be the case. More likely, he'd been worried that he'd end up in the middle of outer space and die within the first few minutes of arrival. So far, he was alive, in a place where grass was green, the sky was blue, clouds were white, and trees were frequently occurring.
He could live with a world like that. It would've been hard to adapt to a world where grass was violet, no matter how much Luna had trained him to be flexible with his attitude to the world.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, he tried to get to his feet, only to trip over his robe.
His clearly oversized robe.
What?
Harry had experienced many bizarre things over his many years; magic, ghosts, crazy people, soul-anchors, the Veil of Death, Draco being turned into a ferret. Lots of things, some good, some bad, some purely bizarre, and all of them something of a shock.
This was the first time he'd experienced being accidentally shrunk. He wasn't sure if he liked where this was going, he'd always been on the short side – whether it be genes or through neglect was anyone's guess – and now he was getting shorter? Clearly, this was a fantastic example of his own terrible luck.
Sending a prayer to the elusive Crumplehorned Snorkack – yeah, a bit too much time with Luna perhaps – that this was merely temporary, he struggled to his feet once more, this time making sure not to trip over his robe, or anything else that he happened to be wearing at this particular time.
His wand was safe, that was good, he hated the idea of having to try replacing it. His glasses were still functional, despite the spidery crack in one of the glasses, that meant he wouldn't stumble around blindly, which was always a plus. And after some brief modifications, he was now presentable in public, or as close to it as he was going to get whilst wearing an oversized robe – he'd never gotten especially good at resizing his clothing and really didn't think being stranded in the middle of nowhere as the perfect time to experiment on that particular spell.
Now he just needed to figure out where the hell he was.
Hopefully, it wouldn't be anywhere near Little Whinging, he'd been actively avoiding that place ever since he'd graduated and gotten rid of the Trace since he knew that he'd probably make the Dursleys' lives a nightmare, and he really didn't feel like enacting revenge. It would be too easy.
He wasn't really sure which way he should be exploring in though. Glancing around again, he saw something kind of odd. Even for him.
"Is that giant bloody tree glowing?" Clearly, that deserved some investigation.
Setting out in that direction, Harry would one day wonder if perhaps it wouldn't have been a lot better if he'd simply turned in the other way and run as far as his legs could carry him.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Harry would never be entirely sure. He set off towards the World Tree, hoping that its 'glowiness' would perhaps shed some light on this new world that he'd ended up in.
On his way there, he ran into a small blonde girl – she barely reached his nose, and he'd gotten really short – wearing something that looked like leather and strings, possibly leathery strings. Obviously, in his usual show of extreme social awareness, he called her on it.
"Doesn't that get cold?" He tilted his head as he took in her choice of clothing, not all that affected by its blatancy due to his overexposure to Luna.
"Wha-...?" She spluttered angrily at his genuine question.
"I asked if wearing leathery strings doesn't get cold? I mean, the sun's gone down, and I'm not feeling all that warm myself, and I'm wearing like three layers of clothes. Granted, they're pretty thin clothes, and I might at some point have used a cooling-charm on it to get away from the nargles, but the point still stands." He elaborated politely.
The girl stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. A reaction which might've been why he'd taken up the elusive Crumplehorned Snorkack as his religion in the first place. It was either that, or Luna had brainwashed him one morning through vigorous use of mad laughter and knock-knock jokes.
He was fairly sure that it had been the reaction, but you could never be certain with the potential of the Rotfang Conspiracy working behind the scenes. Though why they would ensure that their enemies would get reinforcement was a very good question.
God, but he missed her too. He should've taken longer with killing them. Then again, she would've most likely been proud of him managing to kill someone with a hair-curling spell. He guessed that the only reason Lockhart hadn't used it was in an effort to be truthful whenever someone asked if he used magic to enhance his looks.
"What the hell is a nargle?" The girl finally managed to vocalize through her indignant confusion.
"They generally live in mistletoe and jump down on people, clinging to them and bringing bad luck to their hosts." He explained seriously.
"Wha-...?" Her mouth moved, but no words came out, then she shook her head in an obvious attempt to clear it. "Never mind that! Who the hell are you?"
"Mickey Mouse." He answered with a straight face. He hadn't used his real name ever since he'd decided to retire, and he would admit to lacking somewhat in his naming pattern.
Clearly, the girl wasn't impressed with his obvious lie, but at least she wasn't obliviously asking for an autograph – which was always a risk whenever he used names like those on a pureblood – so Harry was willing to write it off as a partial success.
"Stud McMuffin." He instead answered with a sigh. In hindsight, perhaps he should stop trying to channel Luna whenever trying to think of a name.
The girl was developing a very telling twitch in her eyebrow. She looked just about ready to try and strangle him.
"Your real name, brat." She growled out whilst visibly restraining herself.
"I've already given you two and you haven't given me a single one, how is that fair?" He asked indignantly.
She looked moments away from screaming with rage. "You're trespassing!" In fact, now she was screaming.
"Where?" He asked curiously, hoping to get a good hold of where his ritual had taken him.
"Gragh!" Throwing her hands up in the air in the universal sign of having moved beyond words, the girl stomped her feet in the ground in a particularly adorable manner.
"I mean, all I know is that the ritual was supposed to take me to a 'new world', but it's not like I knew where I'd end up." He sighed sadly. "Who'd have guessed it would take so much effort to be allowed to retire?"
The girl stopped her temper-tantrum, turning to him with a curious glint in her eyes.
"A 'new world'?" She tilted her head thoughtfully. "You went to an entirely new world just to retire? Isn't that a bit extreme?"
"I'm good with extremes, it makes life a lot easier. Either you go left, or you go right, or you throw a curve-ball and wander off into the woods." He paused, thinking his statement through. "We generally call ourselves 'crazy people'." He added helpfully.
She stared at him for a long moment, obviously trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about, before she apparently got distracted. "Wait, why the hell would you be retiring? You can't be older than like twelve."
Harry blinked.
Harry looked down at his oversized clothes and his cute, pudgy little hands, before looking back up at the sky.
"I hate my life." He spat out with as much loathing as he could fit into the four words.
"You're older than you look?" She was smiling now, a sadistic curling of her lips that made him wonder if he should be turned on or running really fast in the opposite direction.
Considering that she hardly looked older than ten and he wasn't a pedophile, he was leaning towards fleeing. But, then again, she looked like she was ten, and he was fairly certain he'd faced off against scarier things during his twenty years of life.
He looked at that smile. Well, there was a slight chance that he'd faced off against something scarier... possibly.
"Yes." He responded plainly. "Though I suppose twenty-four would be an unusual time for retirement anyways..." He mused quietly.
"You tried to retire before you hit thirty, and when you couldn't, decided to go to an entirely new world? What's wrong with you?" She actually looked offended at his logic.
"I have a saving people thing." Harry admitted in a sad voice that wouldn't have been out of place in an AA-meeting.
"A saving people thing?" Her face was twisted into confusion as to how he could treat that as something to be guilty of.
"I think we only really realized it when I was twelve..." He sighed. "I couldn't just let her die, you know? Had to go fight the evil Dark Lord and his giant ancient snake, even if my only weapon was an old hat and a bird." He shook his head. "That's when a friend of mine first truly understood that I had a problem. We tried working on it, but I think it was already too late." He commented remorsefully.
The young girl looked at him as if he'd grown a second head, her mouth opening and closing like that of a fish on dry land, obviously at a loss for words.
"Now, where did you say we were?" He politely changed the subject.
"Mahora Academy, Japan." She answered in the dead voice of someone whose brain was too busy to notice what her mouth was saying.
"Japan? Weird." He paused, obviously realizing something odd. "Then why are you speaking English?"
"My name is Evangeline McDowell." She finally introduced herself, gathering her wits and gloating in that manner that said that she was used to people quaking in their boots at her name.
McDowell sounded like a very Scottish name, and even though Harry had never heard of a McDowell family, he was in a new world.
He paused.
If he didn't know who she was, and if the name was completely different from his own world, wasn't it possible that she didn't actually know his name?
It was an absurd idea. Everyone knew his name, young and old, clever and dumb, they all knew his name. He couldn't remember the last time an introduction with his real name hadn't ended in them staring at the scar on his forehead.
"Harry Lovegood." He blinked. "Wait, no it isn't." He frowned. "Dammit Luna! Just because I joined the religion doesn't mean I joined the family!"
Evangeline stared at him in confusion, which was really becoming a regularly occurring expression with her.
He cleared his throat, trying to quell the blush rising to his cheeks at pretty much introducing himself as Luna's husband – not that she hadn't suggested it once or twice. "My name is Harry Potter."
The young girl considered him for a long moment. "Her name was Luna Lovegood, wasn't it?"
"Yes." He admitted in an embarrassed tone.
"I know the type." She nodded sagely. "They're impossible to get rid off." She got a far-off glean in her eyes. "Damn pervert won't die even if you kill him." She cursed silently.
Harry hadn't really minded Luna's presence, odd though it might've been at times, but he supposed that it was true that even in death she still managed to confuse him somehow. He found himself smiling sympathetically at the girl, at least Luna had been fun to be around, the mere thought of having a Luna that he didn't like following him around was horrifying.
The girl suddenly startled. "Wait, stop distracting me! You're trespassing!"
"And you look like you're ten." He pointed out helpfully.
"Gah! I'm a vampire you brat! Respect me!" She yelled angrily.
Harry remembered vampires. Vampires were really nasty and had a tendency to smell. They also viewed blood magic as something so sacred as to not be used, which was the reversed but same outcome of the general public's standpoint. Harry didn't particularly like vampires as they kept trying to kill him for various reasons; perceived slights against their religion, him being tasty-looking, part of the job description – Chosen Ones never get good dental plans, by the way. And since they kept trying to kill him, Harry had found a fantastic amount of ways to kill them in response.
The girl in front of him didn't register as a vampire. This despite Harry having a lot of experience spotting them.
"No, you're not. A vampire would've set off my internal alarms." He explained absently. "Probably not human, I'll admit, but not vampire either." He tilted his head curiously. "Vampires are too... well, dead. You're... not quite alive, but hardly on the level of a vampire. It's a bit like comparing a vampire to an inferi, they're both undead, but to believe them one and the same is kind of stupid."
Evangeline's jaw had dropped open, her eyes wide as saucers as she stared at him.
He blinked curiously at her, trying to understand why she was speechless, before understanding dawned on him. How in the world does a twenty-something person know that much about undead creatures?
"Legacy of a misspent youth." He nodded to himself. "And I might've gotten yelled at by a very angry vampire after calling him an 'inferi with a blood-fetish'." He admitted with a shrug. "Still burned about as well, though." He mused.
"Inferi?" She asked, trying to comprehend.
"Oh? Ah, it's the wizarding name for zombies." He paused. "Zombies sounds a lot more edgy though. Might be the 'z', it always makes things edgier." Harry noted wisely.
She stared at him for a long moment. "I think I hate you."
"I actually get that a lot." Harry admitted. "Well, that or people asking for autographs. Bloody nutters." He muttered with a small frown.
Evangeline looked about to retort to this in what was sure to be a scathing manner, when she startled, turning quickly towards some distant distraction.
"Did anyone else come with you?" She asked in an eerily calm voice.
"No." Harry followed her eyes, staring at nothing.
"Then I suppose there are some more common trespassers. If you'll excuse me, I have a job to do." With a brief nod, she was off.
Harry glanced after her with an unusually somber face. "Dammit. It really is a problem, isn't it?" And with those words, Harry Potter, Savior of Magical Britain and all-around hero, set off after her.
He really needed to find some way to cure himself of his 'saving people'-thing, one of these days.
XXX
Harry stared at the gentleman who called himself a demon.
Harry didn't doubt the gentleman's truthfulness in this regard, because he certainly wasn't human, but he'd always imagined demons to be more... well, horny.
Heh, horny. Good one.
"Shouldn't we... I don't know, help them?" Harry suggested cautiously to the girl next to him, gesturing to the imprisoned – and quite nude – young women, and the two boys trying to rescue them.
"Let's see how far the boya has grown." Evangeline deflected his suggestion. "If he can't even beat this, then I'm glad to be rid of him as my apprentice."
Harry paused, turning around to meet the blonde girl's eyes. He'd never liked the idea of people being 'expendable', even if he could understand the expression, and had done his damnedest to fight against it whenever he encountered an individual who followed the principle.
Which would normally have made them enemies right about now.
Only, the way that Evangeline focused on the fight, it didn't look like she was considering tossing away her apprentice. It looked more like she was observing someone dear to her.
Smiling slightly at the idea of having such a dishonest teacher, Harry returned his attention to the fight.
"I suppose we'll have to wait then. Can't save the young ones from all of their problems." He paused, his smile growing wider, thinking back on a desperate rush for a bathroom as all other first years were herded back to their dorms. "Otherwise they'll never make any friends."
Evangeline almost winced, her eyes darting over to him in confusion, before grumbling slightly under her breath and ignoring him.
Harry, in turn, pointedly ignored the embarrassed blush that was rising on her cheeks. It would be rude to draw attention to such a thing, after all.
XXX
"So, who are you really?" The dean of Mahora Academy asked him curiously.
Harry had ended up following Eva once the young boys' battle had been over, and had as such been introduced to a man that seemed inches away from offering him a lemon drop. He wasn't sure what to feel about that, as the Rotfang Conspiracy had always so obviously been working through the old Headmaster by his attempts at rotting all his visitors teeth.
Still, the dean had yet to offer him lemon drops, his eyes weren't twinkling – instead being hidden under eyebrows the size of a quidditch pitch – and his head looked suspiciously deformed. Clearly, despite similar jobs, similar ages, and similar quantity of oddness, the man in front of him really didn't strike him as a Dumbledore.
Harry didn't really like Dumbledore. He didn't hate him either, the man had made many mistakes, stupid mistakes, and had ended up in a position where any mistake he made was instantly multiplied endlessly. So yeah, it was easy to blame Dumbledore for many things, but it wasn't his fault that the Wizarding World had taken a fancy to the idea of honoring him with heaps of important titles for doing something that didn't in any way fit into the titles' job descriptions.
Bloody wizards.
"I'm Harry Potter." He answered the man truthfully, deciding to treat him as a somewhat responsible headmaster of a large school where magic was kept secret.
"Yes, but who are you?" The dean inquired again, perhaps slightly amused.
Harry tilted his head curiously. "I'm Harry Potter." He stated in a vaguely confused tone before pausing, trying to word it better. "I'm a twenty-four years old wizard with a 'saving people'-thing and a general dislike for giving speeches. Realizing that I would be stuck giving speeches for the rest of my life, I decided to retire. I kind of failed, partly due to underestimating my own fame, partly due to being accidentally heroic on a repeated basis." He sighed sadly. "So, I decided that I needed to retire from my world in a slightly more permanent way. And the ritual that was supposed to take me somewhere new dumped me like this-" He gestured to his pre-pubescent body. "-here in Mahora."
All present in the room stared at him, either not believing him, or simply not understanding his motivations or actions.
"I see..." The dean frowned thoughtfully. "Do you have any useful talents?" He asked searchingly, obviously wondering what they were supposed to do with a dimensional traveler.
Harry pondered this question for a moment.
"I can confuse people?" He started hopefully, before continuing in a slightly scolded way as everyone continued to stare at him. "I'm a good flier, a decent chef, not bad at chores, and..." He paused, trying to think of something else. "I'm pretty good at surviving things that really should've killed me, and then killing them back." He finally concluded.
Everyone stared at him some more. Harry was used to it.
"'Surviving things'?" A grizzled man in glasses asked.
"Story of my life." Harry muttered bitterly. "Damn well gave me a nickname for it too, the ruddy gits."
"A nickname?" Eva asked curiously, obviously hoping to get some dirt on him after he'd been annoying her earlier.
"Not talking. Can't make me talk." Harry dutifully mimed zipping his lips close, locking them, and throwing away the key.
This raised a few more eyebrows in the crowd.
Eva made a miffed sound, before clearing her throat. "The Girl Queen of Darkness." She admitted with a frown.
There was a moment of silence, and then. "The Boy Who Lived." Harry answered with a resigned yet sympathetic sigh. "They changed it to 'Savior of Magical Britain' though, after that one time with the man who named his trouser-snake." He paused. "Not sure why Luna kept insisting that he kept that thing in his trousers in order to hide it from the world, his relationship with it was creepy enough as it was without adding weird names to it."
"You dealt with some guy with a snake in his trousers, and they named you savior?" Eva asked incredulously.
"Well, he was a bit of an asshole, what with killing people, and starting a war, and fanning the flames of prejudice and racism, and killing my parents before trying to kill my fifteen month old self in cold blood, and having all his followers use the government's blatant corruption in order to buy themselves out of jail, and torturing innocents as a way to pass the time." He paused, ignoring the horrified looks of those around him. "He also kind of looked really creepy, but that was mostly because he ripped apart pieces of his own soul in an effort to gain immortality, before getting banished into a wraith for over a decade and then being resurrected in a graveyard."
"And you... killed him?" The dean tried to clarify.
"It wasn't like I could actually avoid him." Harry pointed out. "So I tried talking some sense into him by dropping a mountain on his head. He admitted that I had a valid point." He tilted his head innocently. "Though he might've only been saying that because I turned the entire mountain into liquid rock through vigorous use of Fiendfyre, whilst he was still inside it. I think I actually heard him scream a little bit before it kind of turned into a gurgle."
Eva looked at him with a sort of appreciative face that he'd often gotten from people who'd done similar things to others. Or were just too generally desensitized by previous violence to bother with the morbid end.
"'Fiendfyre'?" The not-quite-a-vampire asked curiously.
"A flame that can devour souls." Harry noted absently. "It's considered somewhat Dark, and is really not very safe to use. Which was why I made sure to wear protective glasses when I lit the mountain on fire."
The dean stared at him for a moment. "You truly do think that confusing people is a talent of yours, don't you?"
"I've been working on it, like any good worshiper of the elusive Crumplehorned Snorkack should do." Harry stared up at the ceiling for a moment. "It's what Luna would've wanted." He added in a sad voice.
It was quickly decided that whilst Harry was obviously insane, he wouldn't be harming anyone since he would be too busy amusing himself by driving them up the walls. Therefore, the dean somehow managed to spin the entire conversation into some sort of job interview, which in turn led to Harry Potter gaining the title of 'Assistant English Teacher'.
Harry shrugged carelessly at spontaneously getting hired as a teacher at an all-girls school, pointing out that he'd had teaching experience previously and that he'd learned a lot more about Wrackspurts – and their mind-infesting properties – since then.
When Eva mentioned that it was still an all-girls school, Harry kind of looked at her funny and asked if it was alright if he taught the nargles something too, since he thought it important for them to get a solid education.
Everyone just groaned and sighed. It was their own damn fault for hiring him.
XXX
Negi stared at the slightly older boy that was going to be his assistant.
Harry smiled encouragingly at him, holding out a necklace made of bottle caps as an obvious gift. "It's to ward off Wrackspurts." He explained.
Negi looked at the necklace, then at the smiling boy, then at the necklace, then back at the boy... He slowly, cautiously reached out and took the necklace in his hands. "Thank you?" He still looked fantastically confused.
"Ignore him." Eva said as she entered the classroom. "He's like an endless source of confusion and madness. Relatively harmless though."
Negi suppressed his surprise at Eva already knowing his assistant, and focused on something that bothered him a tiny little bit. "'Relatively' harmless?"
"I think she's referring to the point I was making when I dropped a mountain on top of Mister Mold In Shorts." Harry tilted his head in a suddenly confused manner. "Or was it You No Poo? It would certainly explain his mood..." He trailed off thoughtfully.
Negi wasn't sure whether to be confused, amused, horrified, or awed. He'd dropped a mountain on someone to 'prove a point'? That meant he must be really really strong, but at the same time it meant that he'd just casually mentioned dropping a mountain on someone as an acceptable way of proving a point. And even if the confusing name was certainly amusing, it felt like he'd missed the joke somehow.
"Don't worry, boya. He's got a 'saving people'-thing." Eva told him as she took her seat, Chachamaru still following silently in her wake.
"Umm... What does that mean, exactly?" Negi asked cautiously, still holding his newly acquired necklace in his hands.
"Dunno, but to hear him say it, it sounds like he's got an addiction for 'doing the brave and noble thing' whilst helping others." Eva shrugged.
"I've thought about seeing a therapist, but they keep pressing their emergency button the moment I enter the room." Harry pouted sadly.
"Why would they press the emergency button?" Negi asked with an innocent face.
"I would assume that it's the result of the Rotfang Conspiracy." Harry admitted with a small frown.
Negi opened his mouth to ask of what this conspiracy consisted of, but Eva interrupted him.
"Don't. Please, boya, don't ask him that. It hurts my brain." She whined childishly.
"Don't worry Eva, Pinky will save the day, and then tomorrow night you will both have a new plan to take over the world." Harry smiled cheerfully.
Negi opened his mouth once more, a glazed look of incomprehension settling in on his face, but this time Chachamaru interrupted him.
"It's inadvisable to ask for explanations if he confuses you. Confusing others is part of his religion." She warned her teacher in monotone.
Negi closed his mouth again, turning accusing eyes at his smiling assistant.
"Such is the way of the elusive Crumplehorned Snorkack." Harry nodded sagely.
Thankfully, before Negi could ask anything more of his insane assistant, the rest of class 3-A showed up.
Not quite so thankfully, the class 3-A showed up. In all their hyperactive glory.
"No way! We got another super-young cutie for a teacher! We rock!" Came the exclamation from somewhere in the back, or perhaps that was the front?
A girl with red hair and a notepad appeared before Harry. "What's your name?"
Harry tilted his head. "Harry Potter."
"What's your age?"
"About three quarters of orange seventeen, and slightly to the left of fifty-five." Harry answered calmly, as if that was a very sensible answer that everyone would understand.
The redheaded girl blinked, her professional look shattering momentarily before launching her next question. "Where are you from?"
Harry frowned minutely, concentrating. "Britain, the land of bizarrely bin-headed brown-nosers." He nodded to himself. "They tried to change the name, but the nargles ate all of their new signs..."
The class was by now thoroughly confused, and the redheaded girl in front of him looked to be in minor pain. Almost as if she was driving herself mad as she was coming to the realization that she couldn't tell if he was lying.
"What of your family?" She finally choked out.
"Ah, the trouser-snake-man gave them the green light when I was a baby, nobody talks about them anymore. Though my dad's doggy tried to tell me some of their stories, before he fell through a curtain... now nobody talks about him either." Harry looked a bit sad for a brief flickering moment.
The class was now both confused and slightly apprehensive. That didn't sound like he had a family, and if they were to go and psychoanalyze the behavior, they'd most likely put it under some manner of suppression of reality.
In fact, Negi looked near tears, the blonde who'd managed to almost pick a fight with another redhead with bells in her hair was crying openly, the redhead she'd been picking a fight with looked confused but sympathetic, and the reporting redhead was rapidly trying to process the new information.
"What's your religion?" Eva's tiredly annoyed voice echoed from the back, startling most of the class out of their confused melancholia.
"The worship of the elusive Crumplehorned Snorkack." Harry answered honestly. "Nobody has managed to find it yet, but then again, nobody has managed to not not find it yet, so it must still be out there, waiting to be discovered."
The class gaped at their new assistant teacher, who appeared to believe that this was a fully logical argument, and couldn't understand why people wouldn't think so.
"Have you ever been in love?" Eva continued, overwriting the reporter's possible questions.
"Dunno. The psychiatrist jumped screaming through a window before he explained it to me." Harry admitted with a slightly peeved frown.
"Why do psychiatrists hate you?" Eva ignored the way the rest of the class was starting to get really really confused by her interest in the young boy.
Harry paused thoughtfully. "I think it's because I once accidentally introduced myself as Harry Lovegood and they told all their colleagues about it." His eyebrows knotted together cutely. "I think it's because of Luna's dad, something about not wanting to expose themselves to the Lovegood-madness." He tilted his head. "Or they might just have been offended when I told them of the nargles... you can never be too sure."
"Is your insanity contagious?" Eva asked, seemingly more as a formality than anything.
"Not any more so than my religion is." Harry shrugged.
"I'm done." Eva finally concluded. "Ask him whatever, my head hurts."
There was a brief period of silence – during which Negi tried but ultimately failed to bring attention back to what they were actually supposed to be doing – before the redheaded reporter finally returned to her questions.
"Right. Do you have any previous teaching experience?" She asked a professional question for once, much to the confusion of the class.
"I taught a secret study-group back in school, so I know a little." He nodded absently, as if he wasn't thinking much of what he was saying.
"A secret study-group?" Asakura raised an eyebrow.
"Well, there was no point in making it an official one if we weren't allowed to have them." Harry pointed out with a shrug.
The redhead considered this for a while, obviously trying to understand why it wouldn't be allowed to have study-groups, it had definitely been one of Delores' more idiotic ideas. "Do you have any other experiences in life?"
"I robbed a bank once. It was fun." He scratched his head a little, not noticing the sudden intakes of breath in the class. "And I held a lot of speeches. Which wasn't fun." He blinked. "Then I retired. Which didn't work. Then I met Eva, and the dean gave me a job." He made a face. "Crazy old people."
XXX
The class of 3-A wasn't entirely sure what to make of their assistant teacher.
He was about the same age as their actual teacher, and absolutely adorable. But he was also completely insane, went off on strange tangents about things that made no sense, irritated Evangeline to no end, made all complicated technology within a meter-radius short-circuit – the notable difference being Chachamaru who simply got a weird tingling feeling whenever he was around – and he was amazing at dodging their attempts at undressing him.
It was one thing to outrun Asuna. That was impressive, but hardly impossible. It was an entirely different thing to dodge the entire class as if it was moving in slow-motion, vault around the room as if gravity really couldn't be bothered to get out of bed that morning, and meld into the scenery as if through magic.
Negi was just as confused as they were however, so the magically aware part of the class concluded that it was unlikely that their English teacher would be turned into an ermine if Harry managed to accidentally reveal magic in his quest to remain dressed.
The fact that Harry seemed to know exactly who knew of magic, regardless of if they'd told someone of their suspicions or not, just served to further confuse all those present.
He was a great teacher though. Always seeming to understand how to phrase it for his students to understand what he was talking about. Of course, he would then continue on about weird things, but most of them had quickly learned to tune him out. It was just easier that way.
The most disturbing thing about him was perhaps how he and Chao kept having mad-laughter-contests. And how he kept winning at them.
Nobody knew exactly where he was staying either, except for Sayo, but she wasn't going to tell anyone since she was having difficulties believing it herself – Eva having only made sure that he lived far away from her cottage and left it at that.
No, Harry Potter, the assistant English teacher of class 3-A, did not live with any of the students. And he had enough room that the only reason he didn't invite Negi to join him was because it was more fun listening to how he'd accidentally climbed into his roommate's bed again. The reason for all of this was that he'd brought a wizarding tent, and he'd set it up in a very much unused classroom, before warding the room enough that nobody would even consider remembering that it existed.
Harry lived a peaceful life, filled with everything from being at a height that allowed him to ogle the rears of teenage girls without getting caught, to exploring his newfound home. He especially liked the big glowing tree in his backyard. It went well with his carpets.
So, like always when Harry James Potter is in any way involved, something had to go and bollocks everything up. In this case though, the festival had cotton candy so it mostly evened itself out.
XXX
"So, this thing can go back in time?" Harry stared suspiciously at the clock.
"Umm..." Negi fidgeted uncomfortably. "How did you know that?"
"Oh, I met you later, then I met you earlier, then I remembered an old friend of mine. She was in two different classes at the same time." He shook his head fondly. "Always too happy to learn, that one."
"Your friend invented a time-machine to get to class?" The ermine asked in disbelief.
Harry chuckled. "'We could've been killed, or worse expelled.'" He nodded happily to himself. "We managed to corrupt her priorities somewhat though. At Fifth year she cheerfully decided to turn us all into criminals... I can't remember whose idea it was to rob the bank though..."
"You're a criminal?" Negi gasped in horror as he began to look around for someone to come and arrest him.
"Not really." Harry shrugged. "We got pardoned for it, since it was to help with the War... still not allowed in the bank though, they get touchy about it for some reason." He stared into the distance. "Might've been because I never returned that dragon that we rode out on..." He mused thoughtfully, before shrugging. "So, have you managed to save your past self's life and created a stable paradox yet?" He asked curiously.
"What? No! Of course not! That would be irresponsible!" Negi declared hotly.
"Really? Huh, well... that would certainly explain why she was so upset that I did it during my first trip." Harry scratched his chin in thought. "I always figured she was just jealous that I thought of it first."
XXX
A/n: No idea where this was going, but it was fun to write a 'Lovegood-like' Harry.