Not much of a chapter to to show for another year passing, but Merry Christmas anyway.
#
"Umbridge is back," complained Ern as he slumped into the common room lounge chair next to Harry.
"There goes our free period. I suppose we should be happy that we got a few months without her," said J before dropping three of the cards in his hand onto the table with a huge grin. "FiendFyre"
Immediately everyone else at the table groaned.
"Why do you keep trying to use that bloody spell?" asked Han. "You have failed to control it every time before."
"But this time I have two cards in Occlumency so that should give me enough skill to control it," answered J, picking up the 52 sided dice from amongst the various figurines on the table, most of whom had started crying and weeping in exaggerated despair after his announcement. "And if I do, then you are all toast, or delicious crispy, crispy, bacon."
One of the figurines pulled out a sword and cut its own head off, which would have been okay except it was one of J's.
"I don't know how many times you have to be told that Occlumency is only good for countering Legilimency," said Sue. "Everyone is dead, again."
"Salvio Hexia-Protego Totalum," said Harry flipping over one of the cards in front of him, causing another groan from everyone on the table.
"At best that's going to flick the spell off to somewhere else," said Ern, "not stop it. We are still going to burn, just a bit later on."
"Better than nothing I reckon," said Harry.
"Aunty often said that in a bad situation, doing anything is almost always better than doing nothing," admitted Sue. "But I'd like to know how you always seem to have something ready to counter anything anybody does, Harry."
"That's because I am not actively trying to win," said Harry. "You are all busting yourselves trying to get stronger and more powerful and control as much of the board as you can, which means most of your decisions tend to be attacking in nature instead of escape or evasion. I'll pick up the pieces after everyone has killed themselves off, hopefully."
"The best defence is a good offence," countered J, rolling his dice and then groaning at the result, as did everyone else including Harry.
A magical flame swept the board removing about half of the pieces including most of Harry's and all of the 'evil' Muggles that had been attacking the magical house at the centre of the game.
The three younger year student watching the game were busy scribbling notes while the seventh years started pawing through thick tomes of defensive spells and arguing about the effects and use of the two spells just played. The Council of Game Adjudicators were going to have their work cut out for them investigating real world cases for an accurate game ruling and mechanic for how best to deal with the situation in more interesting manner in the future.
Harry was really glad he had convinced a bunch of people that giving them to rights to modify the game rules to better reflect the world was an honour and not just something he didn't want to have to think about himself. The fact people from all four school houses were part of the council and contributed very different perspectives could possibly have created a lot of tension and aggression, but somehow that worked in favour of the formerly obscure game Harry only partially remembered playing at Sirius's house with Tonky.
A few of the Ravenclaws were talking about writing a thesis on officially gamifying the Defence against the Arts course. Harry was interested, but only if he didn't have to actually do all the work, or any of it in fact.
"I was really dubious about using this game to learn defence," said Sue. "I mean we are not actually learning how to cast any of these spells-"
"Which is a good thing considering most of them are illegal or at the very least stupidly difficult," said Ern.
"-but it really has taught us a lot about what to do and how to counter the Dark Arts," she finished.
Of course Harry had just been looking for a way out of studying the boring text books normally assigned to the subject, most of which were only really useful if you could hit whatever was attacking you in the face with them.
Smiley's semi-autobiographical books had been entertaining, but not very realistic or useful. They had given Harry the idea of making learning the piles of curses, counter-curses, monsters, and other defence related material a bit more fun.
Smiley had also done the equivalent of what passed for a patent search of the game and assured Harry that what he was developing was unique enough to ensure he would have full rights to market and sell it without having to pay anybody any royalties. A small percentage would go to the Council of Game Adjudicators Harry had created as additional incentive for their help.
He really hope nobody ever made any connection between this game and the borderline evil game from Sirius's house, but Harry felt sure Tonky's mum was right and that game had been created by the Black family centuries ago for use only by their own children as part of their indoctrination into Pure Blood nonsense. The only known copy was destroyed when he and Sirius had accidentally burn the house to the ground while cleaning it. The large parts of various Muggle games he borrowed from were not obvious enough to merit any concern either.
Even if Harry couldn't convince the school to buy it as an educational aid for future years, the popularity it already achieved in the school was sure to continue, netting him a tidy profit for many years to come, so long as the minimally paid free House Elves in his factory didn't keep making 'artistic' changes to the figurines and their personalities.
"Nooooooo!" screamed Zac's second miniature as it sobbingly cradled the burnt remains of what had been up to that that point its biggest and most hated rival and competitor.
#
Deep in the dingiest and darkest corridors of a section of the castle that was cut off from the rest after a very suspicious tunnel collapse some decades before, a room full of elves toiled slavishly to create incredibly lifelike models of various creatures found in almost forgotten volumes of lore so old that the pages themselves could not be touched directly and had to be carefully turned by the gentlest of magics.
"I am telling you this ones likes to pulls the waxes from the ears of only wizzy's that have RED hair," yelled Pickity. "It must have 34 more spells added to the base matrix to behave like a proper thingy."
"Youse is a fool," yelled back Argy. "It's only true when is full moonsy so it need 36 more spells!"
"I'll show you a full moonsy," yelled Pickity, throwing aside her carving knife to leap at Argy with her carving spoon.
The other elves quickly abandoned their work to join in the fray, almost as excited at having to clean up the mess they were about to make as the actual fight itself.
"The-Great-Harry-Potter is the bested boss ever," exclaimed more than elf for no discernible reason at all.
#
House Elves were weird even by wizarding standards, but could be quite amusing with their passion.
"So what's been happening in her classes?" asked Sue. "Is she still spouting the same shite?"
"Nah apparently she has gone all misty-woo and now preaches using peace and harmony or some rot. She spent the whole Griffindors and Slytherin lesson telling them the best way to counter Inferi was with lavender oil or something."
"Only if it burns really hot," muttered Harry.
He was very annoyed. The introduction of the game he learned at Sirius's had removed pretty much all of his responsibilities in regards to helping the others learn to defend themselves, especially after he was easily convinced by some Ravenclaws to create the council in order to make the rules he did remember a lot better and more defined.
He still regularly got together with the defence study group to actually practice a list of spells that was most likely what they would need to know for the end of year exams, along with a few other spells they found interesting or funny, but that was again more a case of having a bit of fun rather than actual work.
He really likes working closely with many of the girls that seem to need some extra personal attention.
Now though, he'd probably have to figure out something to avoid wasting time and energy dealing with whatever useless rot Froggy tried to pile on them.
"Lucky we only have to worry about it for another few weeks," said Sue, shocking Harry out of his downward mood thought spiral.
"What? Why?" he asked.
"The year is almost over. We have the exams in a few weeks and then that's it, and going by past experience, we will have new Defence teacher next year, if you even bother coming back at all after getting your one OWL."
Harry's mind froze as reality suddenly hit him.
As his friends cleaned up the board game and kept talking about mundane everyday things like subject selection for next year and what was likely for dinner, which was sometimes a real mystery since the House elves were again suffering a bout of randomness, a small part of his brain started to panic.
What has going to happen next? Where was he going to go? How had this all snuck up on him so quickly? Five years? It felt like he had only started going to Hogwarts last month, although he had somehow also been here for so long that he didn't know any other life. It was like that nightmare he kept having of waking up on the train trip him having missed out on a large portion of his life. It was actually happening to him, just not in as dramatic a way as in the nightmare.
Then another part of his brain sat up and slapped that other small part in the metaphorical face.
What did he have to worry about? He had money, safety, health, and even a few friends he knew he could trust in for help if he needed it, although Sirius was a bit much of a nutjob to rely on too much. Hell, he could even just come back to Hogwarts next year if he wanted, since it didn't actually matter if he passed any subjects once he got an OWL to qualify as an adult in the wizarding world, so that when he turned 17 he could use his wand outside of school. He could live in the castle eating and sleeping without doing anything he didn't want to for at least another year or two.
He didn't need to worry about what to do, he could just float along and do anything he wanted without anybody putting demands or pressure to make a future for himself. Why waste energy and effort on worry when it really wasn't productive – that would all be Tomorrow-Harry's problem.
"Harry, did you know there is a prophecy about you in the Department of Mysteries?"
Harry sighed.
"Ah Shit."
#
The fact Sirius snuck into Hogwarts, right into the Hufflepuff common room in fact, after successfully raiding the Ministry of Magic, disturbed a lot of people, not the least of whom was Harry himself.
"How did you get my invisibility cloak?" he asked once the confusion and panic caused by Sirius's sudden appearance had settled down.
Well, settled down was not really what happened. More of 'mass stunning spell suddenly makes room go quite' sort of thing. Still, Harry admitted it had been a lot easier than trying to sort out the mess in a more socially acceptable manner.
"You don't have the only invisibility cloak in the world you know," said Sirius.
"So it's not mine then?" asked Harry.
"I didn't say that," answered Sirius, levitating the unconscious Ernie out of his chair and onto the floor so Sirius could take his place in the comfy chair.
The former escapee actually looked a lot more sane and normal than he ever had before. Sane for a wizard that was. At least he was wearing clothes, despite his lame argument they somehow made his transformation into a dog less 'realistic'. Harry was pretty sure Sirius just liked randomly going naked to shock people.
"Whatever, what's this about a prophecy?" he said pushing aside thoughts about just how much of Sirius's behaviour was insanity and how much of it was actual 'wizarding logic'.
"Well while I was thoroughly searching the Ministry for your end of year exam papers, I came across a well hidden room filled with memory orbs containing prophecies," explained Sirius. "My natural concern made me search the index until I found there was one about you. I then cleverly stole the orb without setting off any of the alarms or traps."
Harry immediately suspected this was not what actually happened, but there was little point in making an effort to get the absolute truth from his fairly insane godfather.
Chances were good he just got lost and stumbled on it by accident.
"Won't they notice it is missing?" he asked.
"I swapped it with a decoy, and since normally nobody except the person the prophecy is about can touch the orb, no one will ever know."
"A decoy, where did you get a decoy from?"
"Oh it was just something I happened to pick up somewhere," said Sirius suddenly looking uncomfortable.
"So what does his prophecy say then?" asked Harry, his curiosity overcoming any concern he might have had about meddling with fortunes and fate, as if he had ever been the type of person to worry about such things in the first place. Deep thoughts like that usually were unproductive as they couldn't really be tested or proven in any way.
"I don't know," said Sirius. "Didn't want to accidentally break it or trigger something by trying to view it, since it is magically bound to you."
He reached deep into his robes, much deeper than any mundane pocket could account for, and rummaged around for quite a while before pulling out a cloth wrapped bundle that when opened contained a memory orb much like the dubious quality 'educational orbs' Smiley was still producing in partnership with Harry.
Harry reached out for it and was immediately presented with a grainy image of his Divination professor spouting what sounded like a typically confusing prophecy in a voice that closely resembled some of old codgers who hung out at Vernon's favourite pub.
"Well that was a bit of a waste of time," said Harry watching the recording run through a second time. "I don't suppose you got the exam questions?"
His only answer was a quiet bark from a quickly retreating black dog and the answering screams of students off in the direction it was heading.
Harry sighed again.
Having already found some things that might be actual parts of the Dark Lord's soul or possible bits of a ghost, Harry knew there was always the possibility of encountering more of them at some point in time. He would not have been surprised if the bit he left in a blood covered jar in Beardy's office after it came out of Qmort's head didn't escape somewhere along the line, maybe after a house elf cleaned the jar or something.
At any rate, the garbled mess of a prophecy just made him realise he might have to make a bit of effort to look out for himself but all the nonsense about not living until one of them dies was obviously rubbish since he was most definitely living quite well right now and was happy to keep doing the same until he wasn't anymore, at which point the Dark Lord could have a turn.
He wasn't going to live his life always looking over his shoulder or searching the world for signs of the evil he knew existed. He was far too selfish and lazy to put that much effort into something that really didn't bring instant gratification.
But he did need to start seriously thinking about his future. He didn't have nearly enough money to live a life of luxury, even with his various schemes. He could live comfortable for a few decades no doubt, since being a Wizard basically removed any need for him to spend any sort of serious money to feed, house and cloth himself.
Unlike Muggles, Harry had access to the tools to almost effortlessly create anything he really needed and dozens of ways he could leverage even his average abilities to turn a profit, especially since he had no qualms crossing over to the Muggle world when and if he needed. The possibilities of subtly and quietly achieving success there using just a slight bit of magic were endless.
Once he had his OWL and turned 17 that was.
It was probably time he made a bit more effort ensuring he was definitely going to get at least two OWLs, just to be safe. Muggle studies was practically in the bag, but Defence wasn't a bad backup plan.
Hell despite Greasy's best efforts and Harry's own natural aversion to the ridiculously dangerous art of potion making, he was just passable enough to likely be able to pass the exam. The bonus of seeing Greasy's face if he did get the Potions OWL was likely worth a little bit of extra effort there.
He was fairly decent at everything, and he loved Charms so much it would be stupid not to pay a bit more attention to the actual curriculum instead of just his own interests and priorities. There was likely very little he needed to do to get a passing grade, since his experience in using many, many charms to make daily life easier was well above everyone else in his year, and likely the other two more senior years as well!
Transfiguration had way too many rules and things to memorise for him to be confident of getting through the written portion of the exam, but again, his actual spellwork was top notch due to the amount of time he spent using the spells to do things that would otherwise be too labour intensive to be worth doing. It was much easier to turn a spoon into a knife rather than get up and go get one when he needed it, although the majority of transfiguration spells were so specific as to be almost useless.
Who in the world happen to have a spare pet just sitting around when they needed a goblet, and who really wanted to drink from it afterwards anyway? Hermione almost had a coronary when Harry jokingly asked if he could borrow Crookshanks since he looked like he would make a good throw pillow and Harry was feeling a bit Snoozy. Her threat of blatantly abusing her knowledge of advanced curses that Harry had helped her gain was totally unfair.
Obviously the class spells were used to demonstrate various concepts of transfiguration, rather than being worthy in themselves, but Harry just couldn't bring himself to learn these ultimately useless spells. He had somehow managed to pick up lot of advanced understanding through his use of sleep reading, which was a really huge bonus considering it was only originally meant to allow him to look busy while kipping, but he had no clue how this would translate when it came to the actual exam. With his luck he'd end up having to explain something ridiculous like why the colour of the transfiguration mattered instead of the actual metaphysical mechanism behind it.
He also had no clue if he had a chance at getting a pass in Herbology, not having paid any attention to his grades there despite his Head of House, Flowers, being the main teacher. He didn't mind the gardening it involved and knew he wasn't horrible at it, unlike Ern who was once accused of somehow killing a garden rock in their class.
Tiny gave Harry a top grade no matter what happened in Care of Magical Creatures. It was outrageously biased, but the man did own him for getting his conviction from the Ministry revoked and being allowed to have a wand and cast magic. Harry felt a bit guilty about that, but not enough to try and put a stop to it. He did show up for most classes and also did the assignments that didn't involve too high a chance of death or serious injury (which was not a lot really) but he couldn't count on that when came to the exams.
So, at least five OWLs was a distinct possibility. That was more than enough.
That just left next year. He could come back, loaf around and learn some more interesting magic in a very comfortable and mostly relaxing environment (deranged teachers, deadly competitions, and murderous ghosts aside), or he could head off into the world and start experiencing life outside of school with Sirius or some other adult that could cover for his magic use, not that he hadn't already worked out several ways to possibly use magic before coming of age.
For now he could be content and spend most of his efforts ensuring he continued to enjoy and appreciate the good things in his life, rather than lamenting past lost opportunities or worrying he might miss out on more of them in the future. The prophecy would sort itself out no matter what he did, and it didn't sound like it had anything to offer him right now, so he could just pretty much ignore it until it made some sort of sense. He should probably go speak to Flowers or maybe even Beardy about it, since they might have some wisdom to share, but he really doubted they would say anything that would dramatically affect him anytime soon.
Meh. That can be tomorrow-Harry's problem.
Noticing some of the people around him starting to stir, Harry quickly fell back on one of his favourite tactics for avoiding awkward situations and shot himself in the leg with a stunning spell.
Despite all the new spells he had accumulated in his Defence study, sometimes you just had to go with the classics.
#
Deep in the Ministry the almost silent rows of glass spheres trembled slightly as heavy footsteps marched down the normally empty isles.
Even the oppressive silence held its breath as a cloaked figure slowly proceeded along the dust covered paths; a faint set of dog prints crossing and crisscrossing the path in an obviously confused trail.
Glowing green eyes suddenly turned to the side, focussing on a specific prophecy orb that unlike almost every other orb in the building was not covered in a layer of dust.
A pale hand emerged from strange snakeskin-like robes and slowly reached out, hesitating for the barest of moments before grasping the orb and lifting it from the cradle it sat in.
Here at last he would find meaning. Here at last was the answer to his creation and the purpose of why he felt draw to Harry Potter.
"Bow chicka wow wow"
Strange music blared out of the recording as a group of barely dressed men and women began gyrating in a most provocative manner in front of the words "Welcome to Gilderoy's locker room. Your guide to the sexy, sexy world of Professional Quidditch".
The fist holding the sphere clenched, and Larry's no-longer-wide-open-mouth set itself in a tight line.