There were a lot of cats in Hogwarts.

Harry didn't know if that was because spaying and neutering wasn't a thing in the wizarding world, or if every student just left their respective pets at the school when they graduated.

Regardless of the reasoning, cats (vastly) outnumbered students.

This led to many questions—how are they fed? Is no one allergic to cats? Are any of them animagi? Etc., etc., etc.

More importantly, it led to a significant amount of cat hair.

On everything.

Cleaning the cat hair, Harry already knew, was one of the chief responsibilities of the house elves, but there was only so much one could do with the sheer number of cats.

So.

Cats.

And cat hair.

And, to get to the actual point of his mental rant, therefore cleanliness was not exactly a "thing."

Which was why the sight in front of him—a third year girl being mocked ('gross', 'disgusting', 'freak') by three others for the amount of cat hair on her robes (which was, coincidentally, was about as much as were on their own)—even more annoying.

Bullying.

It was time to do something about that.

Harry did a sharp one-eighty and marched straight to his room.

And picked up the marauder's map.

In less than ten minutes Harry found himself on the staircase in the Astronomy tower, in front of two identical faces, both looking very interested in his presence and not as interested in the wet gray paint that was dripping down the stairs as they had been the minute before.

"You're good at pranking."

They nodded.

"Very good."

They nodded again.

"I want to use that."

They glanced at each other.

"How?"

"Why?"

"I don't like bullying."

The twins glanced at each other.

So far, it should be said, they'd kept their promise, and Harry hadn't been pranked once that year. Sometimes he had to be specifically told to avoid eating certain things, or stepping on certain places, but they always did tell him, just like they'd promised.

But Harry knew that outside of him they were much more indiscriminate about where they pointed their expertise.

Harry, now far older and wiser than he had been when he was actually eleven, also knew that many times—not often, it was true, but a still frustratingly high amount—their pranking could easily be classified as bullying.

It was clear they knew that too.

"What brought this on?" One asked instead.

Harry explained what he'd seen, outlined the appearances of the bullies as much as he was able.

"So you want us to humiliate them?" A twin asked. He looked kind of excited about the prospect, actually—it was definitely in their ballpark, but the individual nature of the victims (rather than 'everyone in x house' or 'everyone in x hallway') apparently provided an attractive enough challenge to pique their interest.

"No." Harry said. "Not—no." Just as Harry knew that the twins sometimes went too far in their pranks, but were genuinely good underneath it all, just as Harry knew (hoped) that the marauders were the same, Harry had no particular interest in meting out punishments that didn't change anything—pain for pain's sake really wasn't his thing. "I want you to get them to change their behavior."

"How?"

Harry narrowed his eyes at them. "You're the pranksters, aren't you? Put your minds to use."

Again they looked at each other. Then, "What's in it for us?"

"A name."

The Marauders had not named themselves. Harry actually didn't know who had named them—Sirius had not gotten around to telling him before he'd died too, and then Harry had been far too busy to ask Remus about something so meaningless, something which had nothing to do with winning the war.

No one, at least yet, had named the Weasleys.

Harry wasn't sure if it was because they'd learned their lesson with the Mauraders—if naming them had made them all the more powerful, all the more eager for chaos—or if the Weasleys hadn't made enough of a name for themselves, or if who it was was just too well known to bother with a name.

He guessed it was the latter, though.

Still, Harry knew the twins wanted a name. They idolized the Mauraders—viewed the scratches on the paper as analogous to godly, as far as Harry could figure. And the Mauraders, they had their name, their nicknames, their jokes and laughs and mystery.

The twins didn't.

Not yet.

Now they were really looking at him with interest.

"Explain." Both said.

Harry shrugged, stepped back until his back hit the wall, and slouched to the ground.

Then he started to explain.

He explained that everyone knew what the twins were about—their reputation already loomed over the school, well known and recognized.

But then, so were they.

If they began pranking people with an entirely different m.o., for an entirely different reason, and worked twice as hard to wipe their fingerprints from the evidence, all the while continuing on their usual pranking spree—

It would be as if a new entity had emerged, as if a new prankster(s) had come to the fore.

And the school would have to name them, if only so that they could talk about them to differentiate them from the Weasley twins.

"We could even instigate a prank war against ourselves…" Fred muttered. His eyes flashed to Harry, then he continued. "We've done some things that could be considered bullying, so we could target ourselves as well as a couple others—including your 'claws—as our new introduction to the castle."

"I like it." George said.

"So do I." Fred said.

"Well, all right. We agree."

"Just—choose a good name for us, okay?"

Neville's family lawyer warned Harry that the wheels of justice were slow going, and he likely wouldn't begin to see any results—no matter how unlikely a good result was—until spring at the earliest.

Bullying was being dealt with, more or less. Harry would still have to keep an eye out, and maybe slip some names to the twins, but it was in their hands for the moment, and all Harry had to do was trust them.

His plan to deal with Quirrell needed him to be in the ministry, which wasn't happening until break.

He still had no idea why he felt the need to wander the castle, and no idea how to ease that mystery.

The school board had gotten their newest petition on introducing more breaks, and written back to say they were considering it (there was apparently no need to actually interview students this time.)

Speaking of—Harry was more or less out of ideas of what to do about the mysterious illness, and the ollepheist was similarly enigmatic.

His current plan for the Philosopher's Stone was to (more or less) ignore it.

Dumbledore had been regularly trying to get Hagrid a legal wand, with no luck, so it would definitely be a while before Harry could do anything about it.

He could write to Remus, but he had no idea what to say (this wasn't a new problem.)

He was waiting to push the Sirius issue until he could do it in person, so that was also delayed.

So, it seemed it was time for Harry to focus on things which might take a bit more time to develop.

"Professor Flitwick?"

"Ah, Mr. Potter! How may I help you?"

"I heard you were a duelist."

"I am, I am! Quite accomplished, as well, though I must admit in recent years I have let my skills atrophy some."

"I was… I was wondering if you might mind starting a dueling club?"

"Any particular reason why?"

Harry fidgeted a bit. It wasn't so much acting—he'd never been comfortable talking to teachers (his track record wasn't great with them, to say the least.) "I—I was reading about the last war, you know, and about how everyone just kind of… gave up, and… and how really it was all won by a fluke. I mean—because no one knows what happened the day my parents died. Anyway, I really just… I don't like the idea that an entire nation's worth of people almost got taken over because none of them knew how to fight or were willing to learn.

And I know that the dangers gone now—for whatever reason You-Know-Who is dead now, and that's… that's really awesome, actually, especially given how close he came to killing everybody. But I don't think that we, that is, the magical world, I don't think that we should wait for the next serial killer to show up. We need to start learning how to protect ourselves now."

"It is not so much that I am in disagreement with you, Mr. Potter; rather, that is the intended purpose of your Defense Against the Dark Arts class."

"But it's not really." Harry said. "I mean, we learn the spells and everything, but we also learn about a bunch of animals and stuff, and about that sort of thing. It's really… academic, I guess, instead of practical. So I figured that's where the club could come in."

Professor Flitwick sat back and thought for a second. "Alright, Mr. Potter, I can see your argument. That said, before any club can be begun in Hogwarts there must be evidence of substantial interest—something I don't think you'll have much difficulty with, given you and Mr. Malfoy's actions throughout this season. So I will lend my support to your undertaking, but only once you have sufficiently proven interest to Professor Dumbledore."

"Thank you, professor." Harry grinned. The meeting had gone better than he thought it would—he'd expected to at least be told the charms professor would have to think about it, or maybe be passed off to the only other adult in the school with (recent) dueling experience—and he doubted Snape would be remotely amenable to any suggestion from Harry.

"We encourage those who are willing to help themselves, Mr. Potter." Professor Flitwick said. Then his eyes flashed. "It has been far too long since a student has taken advantage of that."

Harry blinked at him. The words the professor spoke were far heavier than their meaning suggested, and he suddenly felt as if he was missing half the story, if not more.

It occurred to Harry, not for the first time, that Hogwarts was a very old school. A school which, unsurprisingly, had quite a bit of history.

There was a reason that there was so few professors, there was a reason there was so much bullying, a reason for so little supervision, for so many cats, for the board of governors to never be around, the Headmaster to store dangerous artifacts in a building full of children, for…

Well, for Hogwarts to be what it is.

And that history, as well as the actual people benefiting from it, would be what Harry was fighting against.

Harry smiled again, then took his leave.

It took less than a week to garner the necessary support—forty names spread throughout age groups—and Dumbledore signed off on the club that weekend.

The club would start January, Harry had finally filled all the brainpower he had with waiting, and it was finally, finally time for winter break.