Thanks for the reviews, and thanks again to the guys at AFC who's suggestions and fixes make this a much better fic than it would be otherwise. Please don't expect this fic to go for lots more chapters, or for the chapters to be much longer than this. lazy!Harry is hard to write and keeps infecting me with bouts of his lethargy!
"Whoohooo," screamed Harry as he sped off down the street on Dudley's mostly repaired racing bike.
The front wheel was still a bit wobbly from when Dudley had crashed into Mrs Figg, but it was a decent job considering the tools he had to work with, and how little effort he had put into it.
"Lookout!" he yelled as he shot past a group of people crossing the street.
It was nowhere near as fast as flying for real, but it was still fun, and sticking the old broom to the top tube of the frame turned out to be a lot easier than he had expected, thanks to a brand new hacksaw and a tub of awesome magical glue. Sure the bristles sticking out from under the seat might look a bit silly, but like most people's opinions of him, that didn't bother Harry much.
The original idea of copying whatever spell Hagrid used on the boat to make the bike propel itself was still a good one, but without being able to cast magic, it was sadly out of reach. Using the broom however, was pretty simple, and a load of fun.
"Incoming!" he called, despite there being nobody anywhere near the sand pit of the park he was aiming for.
There was a funny kind of satisfaction in screaming out warnings - a bell just didn't do it for him. A really loud horn might be better, but yelling would do for now.
Hitting the curb at the edge of the park launched the bike a few feet into the air, the old broom struggling but failing to lift the combined weight of bike and boy, and then Harry crashed into the sand-pit and went flying over the handlebars.
"That was awesome," he laughed, sitting up and spitting out mouthfuls of sand.
It was fun, but he really needed to do something about the brakes before taking it out again. Then again, maybe he should leave it, just in case Dudley decided to reclaim the bike now that Harry had fixed it.
As usual, the easier path had some definite advantages to it, that was for sure.
For a brief second he thought about riding the bike all the way to London, but the moment of madness passed and the idea fell back into its rightful place at the murky bottom of the deep dark ocean of his thoughts.
He should probably get a helmet, if he was going to keep this sort of thing up. There was a second hand Quidditch head guard he had bought that could probably do the job, and he was pretty sure it had some sort of crash guard spell or something on it, but he hadn't yet needed to use it so he couldn't say for certain.
Possibly he could get some spells cast on his Muggle clothes to protect him better, but that sounded like a lot of effort, and he only had a day or two left anyway.
"Incoming!" he screamed again as the bike tore down the street, despite his feet barely working the pedals.
Then again, why bother?
"Kings Cross station? This early in the morning? You must be mad keen to get back to school," said Stunfish as Harry dropped the required coins into his hand and choosing to forgo the hot chocolate.
"Yeah, that's right," said Harry, climbing into the nearest bed. "But don't hurry on my account. In fact, take the scenic route and drop me off later. Just make sure it's before you switch over to day mode, okay?"
There really was no need to explain his actions. Getting the bed was his reward for getting up so early, since the mattress was, as he expected, a lot softer and more comfortable than Dudley's old squashed flat one back at Privet Drive.
"Is that an undeveloped Mimic moth?" asked a rather strange looking little blonde girl from the doorway of his cabin on the train. "I thought they stayed in their cocoons until they were ripe."
There was still a good hour before the train left and only a few people were as early as Harry, which was fine since it meant he could take the closest cabin to the entrance and save himself a walk. He hadn't bothered to close the door, since he figured that would just mean people would open it to look inside, despite the fact it had windows. Some people were strange like that.
"A moth? I bloody well hope not," answered Harry. "I paid two galleons for it. I'll be pretty annoyed if it sprouts wings then up and flies away or something."
The girl stepped into his cabin and lent forward, bringing her face ridiculously close to the mannequin's blank face.
"No, they usually have more life-like features," she said after a solid minute of staring unblinkingly at the mannequin with her large, almost bulging eyes.
"I'm working on it," said Harry a bit defensively.
He'd been trying for fifteen minutes to work out how to transfigure a proper nose and had only managed to raise a small bump in approximately the right place. It was getting a bit irritating and was close to giving it up for while despite knowing the spells he needed to use. It was almost at the point where convincing somebody else to do it for him was easier than doing it himself.
"And hair," she added.
"It's coming," said Harry, glancing at Petunia's old mop head he had rescued from the bin.
The black dye hadn't taken well and left it more grey than black, with streaks of darker patches, but at least it now stood up a bit more like his own hair did, thanks to some semi-working charms and the judicious use of scissors.
"The glasses look good," Blondie said. "I like the eyes on them, especially the way they blink."
"Thanks. They came in handy a few times last year, they did," said Harry.
"Of course they'll look better once you put them on your doll's face," she said, rather pointedly.
"Yeah, well, ears are proving even more difficult," said Harry. "My sticking charms aren't much good yet and I don't want to use glue in case I need to move them or something."
"What about tying a bit of string to them and around the back of the head to keep them in place?" she suggested. "Or put some pins through the arms and nail them into the skull?"
Harry thought about it for a moment, and then smiled.
"You know," he said. "I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship."
By the time the train was ready to leave, Harry was ready for a nap.
Blondie was still playing with the mannequin, trying out various ways to keep the hair and glasses on. She had proven fairly adept at learning some of the simpler charms Harry had researched previously for making the mannequin appear more realistic, and Harry was quiet happy to let her experiment.
A few people stopped in to say hello, mostly his Hufflepuff year mates, but none of them stayed very long after seeing Blondie enthusiastically trying to staple the wig to the dummy's head, or when she insisted on changing it into a different set of robes for reasons Harry didn't even try to understand (just what the hell was a Nargle infestation anyway?).
Blondie's comments regarding the doll not being anatomically correct left Harry red faced with embarrassment, mainly because she voiced them in front of Sue and Han, who both ran off giggling to each other.
At some point she began referring to the mannequin as Larry, although calling it Garry, short for Golem Harry, seemed like a better name to Harry when she first suggested it. He didn't know what Larry was short for, and didn't really want to either.
"Playing with dolls, Potter?"
Harry opened his eyes; he would have glared, but that seemed such a bother, and Slick was hardly worth the effort. Before he could make up his mind whether to answer or not, Blondie, whom Harry learned was named Moongirl or something, interrupted.
"I thought boys called them 'action figures'?" she said in a dreamy sounding voice.
Draco shifted uncomfortably; suddenly aware the strange looking girl was staring unblinkingly at his crotch.
"Maybe your moth is anatomically correct after all, Harry," she added in a puzzled sounding voice while not taking her eyes away from Draco's nether regions. "I was certain all boys had lumps there.
"Those two do," she added, nodding her head towards Draco's bookend mates standing on either side and slightly behind him. "And you do too, but this one is flat like Larry, or me."
Harry stifled a snort, while Draco went wide-eyed. Crab looked confused but Gar actually smiled and raised his head proudly.
"You are a boy, aren't you?" she asked, finally looking up to Draco's bright pink face.
"Oi, Potter," called a voice loudly enough to wake Harry from his dozing. "You seen our young Ronald anywhere?"
"No," said Harry, opening his eyes to take in the sight of B1 and B2, the Weasley twins. Identical twins that looked even more like clones than Draco and his father. "Hey, did you guys try to kidnap my cousin a few weeks ago?"
The sudden change in their demeanour answered Harry, although their words said differently.
"What us?"
"No, never."
"Why would we do that?"
"No reason at all."
"It's not like we thought you were being held prisoner and came to rescue you or anything."
"Whatever," said Harry, getting comfortable and closing his eyes again. "Not seen him at all today."
"Well if you see him or our little sister, tell them we're looking for them, right?"
"Yeah, okay."
It was only much later that Harry realised Blondie had not been in the cabin when the twins came in.
And neither was Larry.
"Hello, Harry," said Hermione, walking into his cabin and taking the seat across from him. "I won't ask if you completed your homework during the holidays -"
"Good," said Harry, not opening his eyes as he wondered just how many times during one trip he could be woken up.
Surprisingly resilient after a mere single year of exposure, Hermione easily ignored Harry's apparent rudeness and then proceeded to tell him all about her holidays, her homework, her parent's reactions to her first year of school, her extra study, the letters she wrote to Harry, the letters she wrote to other friends, her upcoming study plans, and just about every other thing she could think of.
"You're punishing me for something, aren't you?" asked Harry when pretending to snore didn't stop her, or even make her pause.
"Yes," she answered, smiling brightly.
"Was it the letters?" he asked after a moment of silent thought.
"The lack of them, specifically," she clarified, still beaming at him.
"Do you think this will make me write next year or something?" he asked, frowning.
"See, it is possible to force you to learn," said Hermione happily. "You just need the right incentive."
"This isn't going to be a good year," groaned Harry.
"And I haven't even started on you for not saying sorry."
"So what do you have planned for this year, Harry?" asked Ernie.
"Planned? I had something planned last year?"
He wasn't concentrating on the conversation though, since the horseless carriages currently had most of his attention. Was it a spell pulling them? Why did it smell sort of like Dudley's armpit on a hot day?
"Well you spent a lot of time making things last year," explained Ernie. "We all sort of thought you had a plan – that you were working towards something."
"Yeah, I was working towards not working," grumbled Harry, "but that didn't work out too well."
Harry stopped and blinked a few times.
"Wow, saying the w-word so many times tires me out. Think I had better have a power nap."
"So what are you going to do this year then?" asked Justin, his swotty accent having reasserted itself over the break.
"I am going to do exactly what I have always done. As little as possible."
With that, he closed his eyes and leaned back, his mind mulling over the mystery of the carriage and how he could find out more about it.
Returning to Hogwarts made Harry very happy.
Soon enough there would be classes with tons of absurd things to memorise and regurgitate on demand. Then there would be loads of writing, note taking, and Snape, of course, but for now, during the opening feast, with his friends around him sharing the tales of their holidays and no assignments or extra study to worry about, Harry was as happy as he could possibly be while still awake.
Hearing that Ron and his sister had apparently nearly been trapped in the barrier at platform nine and three quarters by a rogue elf did give Harry a slightly funny feeling of concern, but not enough to justify ending the night early by going to tell somebody about his own encounter with Dib-dib-dob or whatever its name was.
Besides, he was sure somebody would be looking into it, now that another couple of students were involved, and if they didn't, well there was always tomorrow.
Lockhart was Harry's new hero.
Smiley was a bit too full of himself, no doubt about that, but in all the lessons so far, the Professor didn't actually do anything. Not a single spell had passed his lips, not a wand was waved, and nothing of note was accomplished by the man being paid to be there.
To Harry, it was an awe-inspiring feat to pull it off.
The students spent their class time reading the informative and rather entertaining books, and then just had to recall the stories in them, emphasising Smiley's undoubtedly exaggerated heroism. With the spells and techniques he had developed for fake reading last year, it was a piece of cake.
Sure, Harry was sometimes dragged up to the front to help act out the more dramatic, fanciful scenes from the books, but at least they didn't have a cage full of pixies let loose on them like the Gryffindors.
"Grrr, grrr," said Harry, making absolutely no effort to appear very werewolf-like at all.
"That's it, Harry," encouraged Smiley. "Now come at me with intent to kill."
Harry cringed inwardly at the sniggers of his classmates and seriously thought about charging Smiley and letting loose some of the old Harry-Kari from his Dudley days, but then decided it would likely be a lot of trouble explaining to his head of house why he had killed another defence professor.
Harry hated having motivation forced upon him, but it seemed to be happening more and more lately. Personally, he blamed Fuzzy, mainly because doing that was easier than considering anything complex like the teachers might actually be learning to handle him.
"Mr Potter, I will not teach you how to transfigure a nose for that hideous mannequin until you have mastered all of this year's curriculum and obtained at least an E on your assignments."
He really wished the older students hadn't, for no discernable reason, started boycotting anything to do with Larry.
"But it's like an extra credit assignment," he protested.
"Far from extra credit, you are well on your way to losing House points if I ever see that thing in my class again," said Professor Kitty. "Now put it away and get back to your class work."
Grumbling, Harry stuffed Larry back into his expanded book bag.
He really didn't understand what everybody had against Larry, but it was getting annoying.
"So how do you avoid the more nuttier fans?" asked Harry, thinking about the weird kid with the camera that kept popping up everywhere – Kevin Creepy or something – and the mystery person who kept saying 'meep' at him every now and then before disappearing or hiding.
He was stuck with Smiley serving a detention for something so insignificant even Snape probably couldn't remember what it was.
"If they mob you that much, it must be a pain to get any peace and quiet," he added.
Smiley was a surprising source of knowledge on how to milk the most out of his fame, and often gave Harry pointers on proper marketing techniques. Harry now understood the mistake he made flooding the market with his socks and had resolved to do better next time, if he ever got his elf volunteers back.
He still didn't understand why his former free workforce seemed to be so absent this year, but so long as they were happy, he didn't mind.
( In the deepest, darkest kitchen of the castle, two evenly matched warriors circled each other warily at the very limit of the tea towel binding them together, both snarling in defiance and challenge.
Surrounding them was a crowd of Hogwarts elves, standing on progressively taller stacks of chairs, tables and other miscellaneous and precariously balanced items, effectively making a crude amphitheatre from everyday furniture.
Strange, dramatic sounding music played from somewhere hidden behind the circles of spectators.
Heaving on the towel to pull his opponent off balance, the larger of the two fighters stabbed at the other with his dirty duster, trying to smear dirt on the challenger's face.
The challenger, a younger buck filled with the fires of ambition, ducked his head sideways and quickly pivoted to bring his filthy broom head around to swipe at the back of the other fighter. The older elf twisted desperately and blocked the vicious blow with his weapon, sending a cloud of dust into the air at the impact.
The crowd roared in delight. Never before had the traditional fights for the Weasley's assignment gone on for so long, but with five of the messy redheaded family in the school at one time, the work reward had never been bigger, so there were a record number of elves battling for the right.
"Makes his ears black with greasies," screamed one of the spectators excitedly, crushing his betting slip in his hands.
At this rate, he would win six months of pot scraping duty – more than he had ever had to do before!
"Fills his mouth with mud!" )
"I once hired a Goblin body guard," said Lockhart taking another sip of his tea, "but he turned out to be a vicious little monster and stabbed a rather pretty woman before I could stop him. Terrible incident, but she was able to walk again after some therapy and was ever so grateful when I visited her in the hospital. Now I just get others to do all my important shopping for me."
Harry made a mental note to look up possibly hiring a goblin bodyguard for the next time he went back to the Dursley's.
"This really is a marvellous invention," said Lockhart, nodding towards one of Harry's enchanted quills that was happily autographing pictures for them. It was modified to copy an original message Lockhart wrote, getting his style of handwriting down perfectly after only a bit of training.
"Sure saves us having to do it ourselves," agreed Harry before moving onto something he really wanted to know. "One thing, sir. You've never really mentioned what to do when things go wrong, like that girl getting stabbed. How do you stop things like that from becoming headline news all the time?"
Maybe it was Harry's compliments, or the fact the Boy-Who-Lived was apparently letting him become something of a mentor, or possibly even the fifth of scotch he was liberally lacing his tea with, but Gilderoy leaned back in his chair and shared the most honest advice he had ever given.
"Ah, Harry. Let me tell you about a special branch of magic that I am something of a prodigy in," he said.
"It's called Memory Charms…"
The first few times Harry heard the voice, he didn't really pay it any attention.
After all, living in a castle filled with ghosts, a poltergeist, barmy professors and all sorts of other 'interesting' things did tend to make one a bit less wary of unusual happenings. After a while he realised nobody else seemed to hear it, but he was far too busy trying to work out a way to get Larry into the classroom without been seen to bother worrying about it.
"Kill, must kill," repeated the mysterious voice as Harry was making his way back to the dorms late one night after falling asleep in the library.
A strange scraping noise echoed down the hallway, like sandpaper being dragged along stone.
Suddenly the wall down a bit from Harry gave a slight shudder, as if something had bumped into it from the other side. Harry stopped walking, since this was a bit more unusual than what he was used to ignoring.
The wall gave another dull thump, and the scraping sounded louder, but different, like the sand paper was now twisting and turning, trying force its way through the solid stone.
Standing still, Harry was seriously thinking about saying something, maybe calling out to whatever it was making the noise, when the thumping stopped and the original sandpaper-on-stone noise started up again, heading the other direction.
"Must diet," whispered the voice.
"Too fat for thin pipessss," it hissed, fading off into the distance.
After a moment, Harry shrugged and continued walking.
"Moongirl, why does Larry's mouth keep going back to that big 'O' shape?" asked Harry. "I have to keep doing a spell to make it close, but every now and then it opens back up again. I am seriously thinking about sewing it shut or something."
"I'm not actually sure," admitted Luna, who Harry noticed was not wearing any shoes. "A couple of Seventh years on the train saw me working on him and offered to help out with the mouth. I think they might have been playing a joke on us, but I can't be certain."
Harry nodded in understanding. Seventh years were a bit like that, always giggling and laughing at jokes younger years just did not get. Harry was personally sure the stress of fifth year exams got to them all, since almost everybody older than that acted like Mandrake roots just before they were ripe enough to stew.
"Oh well, I guess it's better than nothing, but I wish it looked a bit more realistic. Even with the hair the right colour, there is still something wrong."
The fact that just about everybody else shuddered when they saw Larry was proof of that, although Harry didn't see any problem with his doppelganger, aside from a distinct lack of mobility he hoped to rectify with more spells.
"Now," he continued, deciding to let the matter slide, "why aren't you wearing any shoes, and is it a good enough reason for me to use too? Laces are a real pain."
"Potter!" yelled Snape, despite the fact he was only a couple of desks away from Harry.
"Yes, Professor?" asked Harry, doing his best not to show how he had almost lost a finger due to Greasy's interruption.
"What do you think you are doing?" snarled Greasy, storming towards him.
"Cutting my ingredients into perfect one centimetre thick slices, sir," answered Harry, keeping his voice level, clear, and as innocent as possible.
"That, is not a silver bladed knife," said Greasy.
"No, sir," agreed Harry amicably.
Silence.
Unnerving silence.
More silence, disturbed only by the subdued sounds of the rest of the class going on with their potion making while also eagerly watching the next episode in the Snape-Vs-Harry drama out of the corner of their eyes.
Harry knew he couldn't keep his silence for much longer under that intense glare, and was going to crack soon, but he tried to hold out for a little while longer.
"Well?" snapped Greasy, apparently too excited at the prospect of having something to pick on to let the silence take its toll on Harry's nerves.
"Well what, sir?" asked Harry, forcing himself to not let out a relieved sigh at not having broken first.
Greasy's face shifted to that particular colour Harry knew meant the git was torn between outrage and glee: Glee at being about to yell at Harry. Outrage because Harry obviously didn't care that he might be in trouble.
"Why are you not following instructions? Are they too complicated for you? Perhaps you should go back to brewing last year's potions, although, if I recall correctly, you were barely able to make those simple concoctions, even with the use of your 'toys'."
"I am following instructions, sir," said Harry. "Cut into one centimetre thick slices-"
"-With a silver bladed knife," interrupted Greasy.
"With a silver blade," finished Harry, correcting the professor. "This has a silver blade, sir."
Greasy shot a quick look at the board, along with almost everybody else in the room, and Harry knew they could all see it didn't say anything about a knife there.
"How dare you bring another one of your ridiculous inventions into my classroom," began Greasy, trying to deflect attention from the fact Harry was right.
"Thank you for the compliment, sir, but I didn't invent this. It is Mandoline slicer, and it dates back to at least the sixteenth century."
Greasy face went a shade darker.
"Muggle filth," the horrible man practically growled.
"Oh no, sir," said Harry, putting on his best 'shocked at the suggestion' expression. "I made this myself by hand. It is pure wizardkind-built.
"This however," he said reaching into his bag to pull out a state of the art plastic and steel slicer. "This is a mass produced work of art. It slices, it dices, and can even make crinkle cuts. Any thickness and any length. This little beauty is guaranteed to make perfect uniform cuts each and every time or your money back!"
Seeing a twitch start to develop over Greasy's left eye, Harry got that warm fuzzy feeling again.
Merlin he loved being back at school.
"So if you can remove memories, like you did for me with that Aunt Petunia in the shower scene, can you put memories into people's heads too?" asked Harry while watching a charmed ink stamp place 'kisses' on a stack of Lockhart's photos during yet another detention.
Taking a cast of the defence professor's lips to make the stamp had been a bit gross, but amusing experience. Setting up a production line where the press photos where stamped, signed, then stuffed in envelopes was interesting and easy, and now they could watch another detention drift by without doing a thing except talk and drink tea.
It was a nice bonus that Harry was getting a knut for each picture. He knew Smiley was getting a lot more than that, but he didn't mind, not when the extra bonus was that Greasy was the one who kept sending him here for punishment. No doubt the bastard thought Smiley was worse than scrubbing cauldrons or hand washing the entry hall, but he obviously had no idea just how well Harry got along with the new Defence professor.
"That's a much more difficult proposition," answered Lockhart relaxing back into his recliner while sipping his 'special blend' tea. "It is common knowledge that everybody sees the same thing differently, so trying to give a person a false memory can end up leaving them very confused. Details are almost impossible to get right and everything gets very mixed up when you try to link it other memories the way a normal one is."
"I see," said Harry, not really understanding the explanation but not concerned enough to dig deeper. "Pity I can't just take a copy of somebody else's memory to watch later and learn how things were done."
Lockhart abruptly nearly spat out his drink and started coughing.
"Sorry," the professor said as he regained his composure. "Went down the wrong hole."
Harry nodded, not really bothered by it.
"Professor," he asked as another thought occurred to him at seeing the stack of envelopes growing steadily. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in giving away a little gift to your admirers along with the picture? Something I can get quite cheap for you? Maybe something like a pair of quality socks..."
"Meep" squeaked a small voice.
All Harry caught was a flash of red hair as his latest stalker disappeared back around the corner behind him.
"I'm starting to wish that wouldn't keep happening," he mumbled to himself.
Charms was still Harry's favourite subject by far.
While the others in his class found revising the simple spells learned the previous year boring, Harry found nothing wrong with going over something he already knew very well – it was a lot easier than learning something new. Of course, he was almost constantly revising anyway, just not the same way most people went about it.
"Morning, Harry," said Sue as the boy-who-lived wandered into the Great Hall just before classes were due to start, and took a seat near her. "You sleep in again?"
"Nah, I've been awake for a while," said Harry, taking out his wand and tapping the plate in front of him.
Then he whisked his wand through a simple series of spells easily recognisable as been related to the charms revision was covering, although not quite the same.
Sue and a few others watched in fascination as Harry's plate suddenly wormed towards the half empty platters. After a couple more swishes and taps of Harry's wand, the cutlery jumped up and ran after it. Reaching the first platter, the animated fork and knife started heaping food onto the plate.
"You are really getting good at that," complimented Sue. "I could barely get my pineapple to dance in the exam last year."
"Dance? Mine just rolled off the desk!" laughed Ern. "If it wasn't for the fact it rolled up over a stack of books first, I reckon I would have failed!"
"Yeah, Harry. You must practice an awful lot to be that good," said Sue. "What's your secret?"
"Actually, I don't practice at all," said Harry, earning a few murmurs of disbelief. "It's true. Practice implies doing the same thing over and over in order to be able to get better at it. I don't do that. When I can, I use the spells, end of story. It just so happens I can see a dozen places to use them where most of you do something else, like reach over and get your food by hand."
"Potter! Was that your bleeding fork that just stole my bacon?" screamed an irate fourth year girl from halfway down the table.
"Er, maybe you should practice a bit too?" suggested Ernie.
"Nah," said Harry, looking only slightly concerned as his food-laden plate returned with the knife and fork running along behind. "There probably wasn't any bacon left on the table so it grabbed it from wherever it found it first, but where did my spoon go?"
From the table next to them, Draco suddenly let out a very girlish scream.
"Ah," said Harry. "Don't worry about it then."
Yep, Charms was definitely still his favourite subject.