Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons or a cat. Happy International Harry Potter Day!
The new school year would be beginning soon. For the Four Against Madness, it meant an opportunity to meet again and purchase new robes (they had all the books already, having read the whole Hogwarts curriculum last year) at Diagon Alley.
Harry was easy to spot, as he was wearing sunglasses and holding a stupidly huge battleaxe. He did not need to wait long for his friends to arrive.
"Good morbin', Harry!" Hermione smiled as she stepped out of the fireplace. "Floo travel really is quite amusing."
"Morbin'." he nodded. "How's your aim?"
"Oh, I've had a lot of practice fishing with the gun." she said. "Did you know this thing has an enchantment that can pull the target to your location?"
"Incredible." he commented. "Anything else it can do?"
"Everything!" she exclaimed. "It pulls, pushes, slows, hits from as far away as a sniper rifle – you name it!"
"No way." he said, putting two and two together. "Let me see those runes."
"I think it's gibberish – something like AVERV, but go ahead." she handed him the pistol, and sure enough, he was able to decode what they said.
"You need to work on your translation." he shook his head. "You mixed up your Es and As, and your Bs and Vs."
"Oh, my." her eyes grew wide. Before she could ponder this new realisation, however, she was knocked to the ground by a fluffy orange blur.
"Meow." Floppa meowed, sitting on her chest and demanding to be petted.
"Yo, everyone." Marc grinned. "Did you hear they changed our second-year Defense books? We're supposed to read Gilderoy Lockhart's self-insert fanfiction instead of an actual textbook."
"Nysta what?" Harry spluttered. "I tried to read one of them and found fifty errors in the first chapter. HE CLAIMED BEARS ARE BIRDS, NOT FISH!"
"Clearly our teacher is going to be far dumber than us." Hermione muttered. "I wonder what her Reddit username is."
It was at that point that Draco made his entrance, accompanied by his father. And thus they were ready to begin.
Their first stop was Madam Malkin's, to purchase robes. After that was done, they headed over to Flourish and Blotts to acquire the books required for the new Defense curriculum. As it turned out, they were not the only ones there. No, there was an immense queue stretching all the way out of the shop, because Lockhart had picked that day to sign his books.
"Soulless creatures." Hermione muttered in disgust as she looked at the crazed fangirls. "What do they see in him?"
"Genetics and a Gringotts vault." Marc offered helpfully. "And heroic tales on top of that."
"The average witch is retarded." she facepalmed.
Just then, Floppa felt a nice, soft human hand pet him on the head.
"Hi, Floppa."
The Four Against Madness turned, finding themselves face-to-face with none other than Ginevra Weasley.
"Oh, hi." Marc said. "You're going to Hogwarts this year?"
"Yeah." she said. She then noticed Harry was there, blushed and ran away giggling.
"Looks like you have an admirer." Draco laughed as the redhead girl ran back to her parents, who were making their way to the bookstore.
"She's no Ireena Kolyana." Harry shrugged.
"Speaking of Ireena" Hermione interrupted, "have any of you found an adequate TTRPG system as a 5e replacement to run Curse of Strahd in?"
"The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay rules would need a lot of tweaking, but they're the best I've found." Harry replied.
"I was thinking of Pathfinder 2e." Draco suggested. "Being a caster isn't as flashy, but the mechanics are interesting and building a martial is a process that can end with different results rather than 5e's crossbow meta."
"I tried playing Honey Heist with Floppa." Marc said. "It was… an experience. And I mean that in a good way, although I highly doubt it would work well for a whole campaign."
"I had this weird idea to run the game in Star Wars Saga Edition." Hermione told them. "I had a dream where Quirrell taught me how to convert the plot to make sense. I can even run it in multiple eras."
"How good is the Force there?" Harry asked, intrigued.
"I think you'll like the Force lightning." she replied with a smile. "Force powers are one of my favorite parts of the system."
Unfortunately, their intellectual discussion was cut short by an annoying reporter for the Daily Toilet Paper, that is, Daily Prophet. Naturally, he started making monkey noises when he saw Harry's scar.
"Ooga booga Harry Potter!" he said. Well, not exactly that, but you get the idea. He grabbed Harry by the arm and dragged him into the centre of the room before Harry had a chance to make an opportunity attack.
"Merlin's beard!" Lockhart sputtered. "Is that… Harry Potter?"
"If I say no, will you leave me alone?" Harry inquired.
"Ah, so modest." the older wizard chuckled. "Almost as modest as I was at your age. Did you know that when I was in my second year, I proved that magical flames cannot be extinguished by Muggle means? They offered me an Order of Merlin for that, but I just couldn't accept it."
Somewhere in the crowd, a scoff and a loud meow could be heard.
"I will graciously share my insights about the nature of magic and far more." Lockhart rambled. "For I have agreed to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts!"
Harry felt a piece of him die inside, torn to shreds. This year would be tough on his sanity. He wished he could bring his manul to school, but only one pet was allowed and he really needed Hedwig.
After what felt like an eternity of having shitty pictures taken of him to boost the popularity of whatever useless piece of scrap would print articles about Lockhart, he finally managed to slip away, stealing the most annoying reporter's camera as he did so. Moments later, the item was successfully transfigured into an angry dog that started barking at people.
He left the bookstore in a hurry – to hell with his textbooks, he'd rather fail Defense than forgo his sanity by sharing a classroom with that retard. As he exited, he ran into the Weasleys once more.
"Oh, hi." he said. "Word of advice, don't take anything Lockhart says seriously."
Ginny blushed awkwardly, Ron kind of shrugged, Fred and George were busy throwing fake poop into the crowd, Mr. Weasley was trying to figure out how some weird muggle device worked and Mrs. Weasley looked insulted.
"He's the best you could hope for!" she countered. "A man with that much experience..."
"Floppa is better." Harry and Ginny replied at the same time.
The argument went on, becoming increasingly more pointless, and as such neither noticed the disillusioned blur that moved past them and deposited a small black object in Ginny's cauldron. The mysterious intruder slipped away unnoticed, his presence known to none.