Disclaimer: The Fat Lady belongs to JK Rowling (who apparently couldn't be bothered to give her a name).
A/N: This chapter contains one of the most explicit continuity error in the series. Wood says that Gryffindor hasn't won the Quidditch Cup for seven years, even though Charlie (confirmed as the last one to win it in Chapter 15) left Hogwarts only three years ago. (Unless Charlie only played and earned his great reputation up through fourth year, which sounds just as ridiculous.) I have decided to simply gloss over this and several other smaller continuity errors in this story, since they would only call the authenticity of the books into question.
Chapter 8: Vector
Flight of the Fat Lady
Professor Vector took up the book next and read the next title: "Chapter Eight: Flight of the Fat Lady."
It soon proved that Professor Lupin was an actual competent Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher—although Malfoy still found fault with him.
"'Look at the state of his robes,' Malfoy would say in a loud whisper as Professor Lupin passed. 'He dresses like our old house-elf.'"
"Ugh, where to start with that one?" Harry grumbled.
Harry's other classes were not going so well. Snape was even angrier than usual, and Trelawney (and Lavender and Parvati) still insisted he was about to die. Harry raised an eyebrow at the pair upon hearing that.
"Well, it was a perfectly reasonable prediction at the time," Lavender defended them.
"When nobody else had died?" he asked.
"Well, you could have. Load of times! We've all seen that. And prophecies don't always come true, you know."
Hermione scoffed at that.
Meanwhile, Hagrid had panicked a bit after the Buckbeak incident and spent the next several weeks teaching the class about Flobberworms. Professor Grubbly-Plank shook her head: "Hagrid, if you do resume the post, I'll leave you my lesson plans. There is a curriculum to be followed."
Quidditch season started, and Oliver Wood was obsessing over it, as usual. Though to be fair, he had been effectively robbed of the championship for the past two years by outside circumstances.
Well, outside circumstances the previous year, Harry reflected. It was his own failure to appoint a reserve Seeker in Harry's first year.
Soon enough, the first Hogsmeade weekend was coming up (and Harry still had no solution for his permission slip problem), but that conversation was interrupted but Crookshanks having another go at Scabbers.
"'CATCH THAT CAT!' Ron yelled as Crookshanks freed himself from the remnants of the bag, sprang over the table, and chased after the terrified Scabbers." The chase went on for a while, with everyone falling over each other.
"Wow, that's even crazier than I remembered," said Dean. "The book makes it sound like it was Tom and Jerry all year."
"Who are Tom and Jerry?" asked one of the younger students.
All of the muggle-raised students looked at each other, and Dean said, "We have got to figure out a way to get a telly working in this place."
"'That cat's got it in for Scabbers!' said Ron, ignoring the people around him, who were starting to giggle. 'And Scabbers was here first. And he's ill!'
"You know, mate, there's lots of cats in the castle," said Seamus. "How did Scabbers survive so long with all of them around to begin with?"
"Er…" Ron said, not wanting to admit the truth, even though it would come out eventually. He hadn't thought about it at the time, but Scabbers hadn't had problems with any other cats up to that point.
"Scared them off, maybe?" Harry suggested.
"Huh?" asked Ron.
"Crookshanks knew something was up, right? Maybe the other cats could sense something, but—er, Scabbers intimidated them off because they weren't part-Kneazle."
"Or part-mental," Ron countered, causing Hermione to glare at him.
"Or he changed when nobody was looking," she added to the confusion of their classmates. Harry thought that also made some sense.
Scabbers escaped that time, but it was clear now that Crookshanks was giving him at least as much stress as Sirius was. And Ron wasn't the only one having trouble with pets. The next day, they learnt that Lavender's rabbit was killed by a fox, which she took to be Professor Trelawney's prediction coming true despite Hermione poking multiple holes in the story. At the Gryffindor Table, Hermione decided discretion was the better part of valour and didn't say anything as that story was repeated, since Lavender was still glaring at her.
Harry tried asking Professor McGonagall directly for permission to go to Hogsmeade, which was admittedly kind of dumb since she was the one enforcing the permission slips, but he was running out of ideas by that point. Unfortunately, it removed the possibility of forging Uncle Vernon's signature from consideration.
Fred tsked and shook his head when they heard the story. "Rookie mistake, Harry. Why didn't you just forge the signature from the start? It's not like she'd know what your uncle's handwriting is like."
"Our Harry is too honest for his own good," George agreed.
Up at the High Table, the teachers were also debating it. "Could you have done something, Minerva?" asked Professor Sprout. "Perhaps sent a new form to Potter's relatives on principle, even if it was unlikely they'd sign it?"
"I suppose I could have," she answered, "but I confess I wasn't trying so hard because it would have been safer for Potter to stay at the castle anyway."
"In my opinion, it's good that you came down on him, Minerva," said Snape. "Potter was getting too accustomed to getting away with things simply because of who he is. Not that it stopped him for the remainder of that year."
"He…does have a small point, there," added Professor Flitwick.
McGonagall shook her head: "A small point. And it is something I have tried to avoid myself, although circumstances often make it difficult. Regardless, we should continue. Septima?"
Professor Vector kept reading. On the day of the Hogsmeade visit, Ron and Hermione went down to the village while Harry was stuck wandering the castle. Filch was being his usual self, trying to force Harry to stay in his Common Room since he wasn't going to Hogsmeade—which he had avoided as it would have left him trying to socialize with the hero-worshipping younger students (especially Colin Creevey).
After wandering around for a while, he eventually found his way to Lupin's classroom, who was kind enough to invite him in for tea. This finally allowed Harry to ask about the Boggart, and Lupin explained that he had a good reason for Harry not to face it—namely, that he was worried it would turn into Voldemort, so that was one mystery solved. Harry also started to ask about the dementors, but they were interrupted by Snape bringing in a rather suspicious-looking potion that they now knew to be Wolfsbane. Harry had really thought Lupin shouldn't drink it, but he couldn't come up with a believable reason.
"'Professor Snape's very interested in the Dark Arts,' he blurted out.
"'Really?' said Lupin, looking only mildly interested as he took another gulp of potion.
"'Some people reckon—' Harry hesitated, then plunged recklessly on, 'some people reckon he'd do anything to get the Defence Against the Dark Arts job.'"
"And once again, Potter sees the situation and immediately jumps to the wrong conclusion," Snape complained.
"It's not like you make it hard to do, Severus," said Professor Vector, "and it's not as if Lupin was about to tell Potter the real reason for it."
"Hey, that's something," Ron whispered cheerfully. "Snape'll never get to be the Defence Professor now."
Harry glanced up at Snape, who was looking as surly as ever. "I wouldn't put it past him," he said.
In the book, Ron did agree with Harry that it looked suspicious when they returned, although Harry thought now that Hermione had a point when she said it was far too obvious.
In any case, the Halloween Feast went off without a hitch. But afterwards, they returned to Gryffindor Tower to find the Fat Lady was gone, with Peeves of all people as the only witness. The poltergeist reported that the Fat Lady's portrait had been slashed up by Sirius Black. The first- and second-years who hadn't been there gasped.
"You know, I've got to wonder, did anyone think Peeves might be lying?" asked Ron when the chapter ended.
Harry thought about it, but he shook his head: "Eh, I don't think Peeves would lie to Dumbledore."
"I'm not sure Peeves lies at all," Hermione said. "Plays word games, yes, we've seen it, but…well, look at him. He's the archetype of the fool, and in Shakespeare, the fool always speaks the truth."
"I seriously doubt Peeves even knows who Shakespeare is, Hermione," said Harry.
Hermione had to admit that was a fair point.
A/N: Technically, Peeves does speak an untruth with "you're killing off students" in his "Oh, Potter, you rotter" song, but I can write that off as artistic license. Plus, Peeves is more one for pratfall comedy to begin with.