AN: I do not own Harry Potter or the Wizarding World Universe.

Edit: Great call on one of the reviews. I have a spreadsheet of each student and house + timetables. I shouldn't have missed that Justin a Muggle-born. For some reason, in my head, he was a half-blood. Kinda a major point in the second book. Things are fixed. Now, I need to double-check about forty more chapters.

Chapter 13

"Mr. Potter, you seem to be staring at your mouse rather intently. If you would, please change your mouse into a snuffbox. Only through practice can we make any progress," Professor McGonagall said from the teacher's desk.

Harry heard Malfoy and a few other Slytherins snicker.

It wasn't that he didn't practice; there was something he wasn't sure about. The pronunciation was key for all incantation, and Transfiguration was one of the more precise branches of magic. He'd done his homework and studied examples but didn't have a mouse to practice on. If he were honest, he was waiting for Granger to complete the spell and maybe help Ernie do his first before he tried it.

Harry took a deep breath and pointed his wand at the mouse. "Moo-TAH-bih-lees Moo-skee-FAHS-kees," he said carefully while imagining the picture of a wooden box about the size of his hand that opened in the middle. He realized that he didn't factor in the mouse's size and weight a second too late.

The mouse squeaked and transformed into a box with ears and a furiously wiggling tail.

It looked silly, and the normal Slytherins laughed.

"I don't see what is so amusing," the professor said with a deep scowl. "Mr. Potter has managed more than each of you have so far. Take ten points for Hufflepuff, Potter. Might I suggest you study what a snuffbox looks like and try again?"

Harry nodded and wrote down what he did and how he did it. He tried to write what he'd pronounced to the best of his ability. He would add it to his finished pile of notes after class. Merriweather clearly stated that each attempt at a spell should be written down for later review. Even if the spell worked, he should write down what he did until Harry felt he had mastered it.

If he were honest, he didn't see the point of all the extra stuff. It made an already lengthy process even longer by writing down all his attempts. He grimaced as he finished writing the last description of how the mouse box looked. Would it make him more aware of how bad at Transfiguration he was?

Harry took a deep breath and focused on the still-squirming mouse. "Reh-PAH-ree-farj," he carefully pronounced and focused on putting the mouse back to rights. At the same time, Harry made a circle with his wand tip and pointed it at the transfigured mouse. He heard a little pop, and the mouse-box began to shrink back to a regular mouse, albeit still agitated.

"I think you made the resident know-it-all mad," Harper whispered behind him.

Harry didn't need to look up to see Granger glaring at him. He imagined he could feel her anger directed at him from across the room. She always sat closest to the professors.

"We're so going to have to do a ton of essays on this, won't we," Macmillan sighed. "Why can't it ever be easy."

"Because magic is not easy, Mr. Macmillan. Please continue to practice," Professor McGonagall chastised.

Harry had a feeling it would just be one of those weeks. In their next class, Potions, Professor Snape was unpleasant to be around at the best of times. Whatever hurt his leg healed some time ago. That morning, he seemed angry with all the students for no apparent reason.

"The Strength Potion is so easy to brew that a blithering imbecile could do it in his sleep. Why, then, Goldstein, is your potion yellow and not orange? You would have had to put the Fanged Geranium in second and not first. Are you so empty-headed that you should have been sorted into Hufflepuff? Even fluff-brained Green managed to get an orange color in his potion. This was supposed to be an easy lesson, yet five of you dunderheads have already failed!"

Harry kept his eyes on his cauldron's rich orange color and did not look up. Ernie was muttering something under his breath, so Harry kicked him as stealthily as possible. There was no reason to draw the professor's attention their way for any reason.

By the end of the lesson, Professor Snape managed to make three people cry when he berated their potion-making skills and general lack of intelligence. Two happened to be Ravenclaws, who prided themselves on being the best at what they did. Gordon was furiously wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Something wasn't mixed correctly, and the fumes released made her already frizzy hair stand on end.

"Well… just History of Magic after lunch," Susan sighed as she slid into the bench in the Great Hall.

"Yeah… then like three hours of homework," Finch-Fletchley huffed. "Twelve inches on Wiggenweld? We haven't even done that potion yet. What about the Strength Potion we just did?"

Harry looked up from his meat pie and mashed potatoes to see Professor Quirrell enter the Hall and make his way up to the High Table. He looked much better than he had, and a… confidence in his walk wasn't there before. After considering it for a moment, he didn't think it was confidence, just… something different. Professor Quirrell never hunched over or anything, but he seemed to be taller.

The beginnings of a headache started. He sighed and put his fork down. The day just needed to finish so he could do something other than think about Transfiguration and Potions.

Harry made it through the day; however, the week wasn't over. Malfoy made History of Magic unbearable. He, Crabbe, Goyle, Vance, and Avery all did their best to taunt or otherwise disturb the Hufflepuffs. The professor, being a ghost, didn't care as long as the Slytherins weren't too loud.

"Silencing Spell," Bridget growled. "I'm learning it so we don't have to listen to them."

Harry nodded. It was a good idea and a great spell to learn. He just wished he had more time.

The Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw match was in two weeks, and the entire school got more excited about the confrontation. Slytherin started their campaign against Gryffindor again. It was like the two were oil and water. Much to Harry and many other Hufflepuff's amusement, Malfoy decided that he wanted to intimidate older students like his fellow snakes.

"The Malfoy boy has a terminal case of the stupids," Kilgore sighed as he took a seat at a nearby table in the Common Room. Of course, everyone at Harry's table stopped working to listen in.

"I heard something about the Clock Tower," a sixth-year witch snorted.

"The Weasley twins happened. Malfoy threatened to have their father fired from the Ministry. They stuck him to the shorthand of the clock, so he kept spinning and screaming. I think Professor McGonagall debated letting him fall when he started blaming her and threatening to get his father," Kilgore laughed.

Harry fought a grin. He was the only one. Everyone at the table either laughed or snickered at Malfoy's misfortune. The best part was that Malfoy didn't seem to understand when to quit.

"Why is Malfoy's hair, nails, and robes pink?" Hannah asked the next day after the Clock Tower incident.

Harry looked up and spotted the unfortunate Slytherin instantly. He jumped up and down and threw the silver goblet to the floor. Then he proceeded to blame the Weasley twins, who weren't even there, loudly.

"I think pink looks good on him. It matches his blonde hair," Megan Jones snorted. Her dark eyes glittered as her mouth twisted into a sneer.

Professor Snape appeared and waved his dark wand over his student. The enchantment or whatever it was slowly faded.

"Must be nice to have a daddy who will make all your mistakes go away," someone shouted in the Great Hall.

Professor Snape's head snapped up and scanned the Hall, his eyes narrowed. It was dead silent. Malfoy's face was the only thing that was pink now.

"Yeah, pink looks good on him," Jones half-whispered, half-giggled.

All good things must come to an end, and Malfoy's poor decision to try to throw his proverbial weight around with older students stopped. Instead, he turned his attention to fellow first-year students. Harry thought it likely because he saw many of them laughing at his several humiliating encounters.

"Potter," Draco thundered. When he was sure people stopped to listen, he continued, "Potter, I'm surprised you even bothered showing up today. Don't you Hufflepuffs normally hang around your common room crying about House points?"

Harry just raised an eyebrow at the git. When Malfoy opened his mouth, Harry turned to head up to class.

"If there's one thing Hufflepuff excels at, it's being invisible. Like running away. Just like you, Potter… except for the scar, and you've tried to hide that too."

Words were precisely that: words. Thankfully, Malfoy hadn't started cursing or hexing people in the corridors like some of the older Slytherins, Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors. There was a nasty scuffle between Helena Marrow, the Ravenclaw Chaser, and Maybury from Slytherin. Both were given detention for a week and had fifty points taken. No one would say what started the fight, but some potentially dangerous spells were used in the corridors.

Harry sat with Merriweather before the awaited match on Saturday morning and felt like he was melting into the chair. He had no energy to even read.

"A little less than four months," she said suddenly.

Harry blinked and sat up. She was looking at a long bit of parchment. "Sorry?" he asked.

"No, no, just saying, I've got this much left to do and only four months before I sit my exams. I'm… a little stressed," she sighed.

He frowned. "Is there a way I could help?"

A genuine but sad smile crossed her lips. "You're sweet, but no. If you were in my year or even a year younger, I might take you up on that offer, but sadly you aren't. I also don't need a house-elf to wait on my every need, and I wouldn't want to treat you like that anyway," she quickly clarified.

Harry nodded. "Do… you want me to just leave you alone?" he asked. Maybe his presence was distracting her.

"No, just keep doing what you always do. I know it's odd, but just sitting there is like having someone help me. No, I'm just complaining that I didn't study enough before this term. I… well… had fun after my O.W.L. year and really before then, too," she muttered. "It's coming back to bite me now."

He shivered. "If you feel like you aren't ready after all that work you do," he muttered. "Then I'm screwed."

Merriweather laughed; it was a tinkling sound that was both pleasant and soft. "Potter, you're going to do just fine. Keep up taking those detailed notes every year, and don't be afraid to read ahead."

He shook his head. "I… don't really see much difference in the notes and well… doing it like all the others," he admitted.

Instead of being mad, the older witch smiled at him. "Really? I challenge you to go get one of your little note packets that you haven't looked at in a while. Bring it back, and we'll do a little experiment," she challenged with a wink.

Harry frowned but did as she asked. He came back with the first one he made, the Knockback Jinx.

"Okay, tell me everything you remember about the Charm," she said, her smile never leaving her lips.

Harry frowned and did what she'd asked. He knew there were things he didn't remember completely, but he felt confident in the core of the information.

"Okay… that wasn't bad," Merriweather said slowly. Her smile faded as she looked him over. "Now, start from page one of your little packet you spent time on. Let's see how you feel after reading it."

Harry shrugged and did so. He read the general information and what books he'd used on the first page. As he read, more little tidbits of information he'd forgotten jumped out at him. His reading slowed as he reread the parts where he rewrote or paraphrased things he'd copied from books. The last pages were what Merriweather called the experiments and experimental section. Every time he cast the jinx for practice, he wrote what happened. Most entries were written as simply: "It worked."

"Okay, I remembered most of it, but yeah, I didn't remember all of it," he reported.

"You don't need to remember all of it, Harry," she said gently. "How much time do you think it would take to find all those things you wrote down if you needed to do so again for another essay? Or… for researching a new way to… say, change the spell itself. Make it more powerful or less powerful."

Harry nodded. It would take a while, and he already had a list of books in which he knew exactly where the Knockback Jinx was. "A good bit of time," he admitted.

"How hard is it going to be to review this spell for your end-of-term exams?" she pressed.

"Not that hard," he nodded and looked at the parchments in his hand again. "Thank you," he finally said.

"I didn't show you anything; I only gave you an old copy of my Knitting Charm. You… are the one that did something with that knowledge."

"Still," he muttered. "Thank you."

"Then you are very welcome. Now, I need to get back to studying. I've got rounds at noon and ten tonight. Ugh… I should have never wanted to be a Prefect or a Head Girl."

Harry didn't think he was supposed to say anything, so he stayed quiet.

That afternoon, he heard some of the older Hufflepuffs discussing speaking with Professor Sprout. He guessed it was time for another of the meetings she promised. When Hannah and Susan met with the Head of House on Sunday, he figured he had some time before his turn. He assumed Professor Sprout went down the list alphabetically. Harry realized he was wrong when he got a letter asking him to visit her office at four on Monday.

Professor Sprout sat behind her desk when he knocked on the stout door and entered. "Ah, good," she smiled and waved her wand. The small couch that could sit two jumped apart and became two single seats.

"We'll have one more meeting before the end of term. I just wanted to see how you feel about your year and the end-of-term exams. This one will be quick unless you feel you want to bring up something important," she said with a smile.

Harry thought hard about the question. A lot had changed since even the last meeting. His yearmates were friendlier with him, and he studied with them. He liked most of his days at Hogwarts. There were a few students, professors, and subjects that he would rather not take, but he knew there was nothing she could do about that.

"No, professor. I think everything is okay," he finally said. He noticed she'd watched him closely while he took his time to answer.

"You don't know how happy I am to hear that," she smiled. "I also wanted to congratulate you on starting to turn in more comprehensive homework assignments. One last thing," she said quickly before he could respond. "Do you need more ingredients for the paste, and did it help? I noticed that you don't use it all the time, just on some days."

Harry shook his head. She'd given him a lot of ingredients. "Thank you again, professor," he said quietly. He didn't know what he would do, but he wanted to pay her back for the paste.

"You are very welcome."

"Is there a spell for turning mediocrity into an art form, or is that just what Hufflepuff does naturally?"

Harry glanced at Malfoy and tried not to smirk. He hadn't realized Draco knew the word mediocrity. Someone must have bought him a dictionary for Christmas.

"Does anyone else smell something?" Ernie asked a little too loudly.

"Yeah, it smells like a sour snake," Green snorted.

"Watch it, Green," Draco sneered. "My Father…"

"Works with mine, yes, I'm aware. You do realize that I also write my father? I think he teases your father about what a failure his son is."

"You dare!" Malfoy shouted.

"That'll be ten points from the loud one," Professor Binns said, breaking from his monologue. "Gadson and Grimlon always wore petticoats, which were out of date for the time. The exact number of buttons on their coats always totaled eleven, never more," the dead professor droned on as if nothing happened.

"You'd think he would know when to give up," Wayne said in a loud whisper designed to carry.

"I hear pink is his color," Hannah giggled.

Malfoy's face went red as he tried to reach into his robes. Avery, Nott, and Vance all tried to get him to calm down, but the git wasn't having it. He brandished his wand.

Harry felt the temperature of the classroom drop. At first, he thought it was something that Draco did, but he looked as shocked as everyone else.

"You are dismissed for the day. Fifty points," Professor Binns declared with a wave of his hand. When Malfoy didn't move, his face turning redder, the professor did something Harry had never seen. "Begone!" the ghost shouted.

The door to the classroom burst open, and Malfoy was ejected by magic. The door slammed shut a moment later.

"Let this be a lesson, children. I will not tolerate any more of this. While Gadson led the group of wizards against the goblin chief Anoxlox, a curse in their filthy tongue, Grimlon found survivors and roused them against the Muggle invaders," Professor Binns continued as if nothing happened.

Harry looked at the other Hufflepuffs and then across to the pale-faced Slytherins. No one spoke for the remainder of the class.

"Think he'll stop?" Longworth mused as they made their way down the corridor.

"This is Malfoy we're talking about," Cauldwell sighed.

Harry thought he heard one of the Slytherin girls snort behind them.

After another encounter with Malfoy and his pet human-shaped gorillas, Harry strongly debated if Quidditch was even worth it. He made the mistake of expressing his thoughts aloud near Abbott. "The next match isn't for like four weeks… why are they being so stupid about Quidditch this early?" he complained at lunch the next day.

"Quidditch is not stupid," Hannah hissed. "You take that back, Potter! The Slytherins can't help being sneaky, slimy gits who only get through life by cheating," she huffed.

Harry raised an eyebrow at her. So far, he'd only seen a few Slytherins acting that way. The Weasley twins were no saints either. He was sure there were Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who tried to get the other teams in trouble, too. However, It was likely that the Slytherins started it, and it escalated from there. It could also just be a tradition in the school or something. He didn't have anything to compare it to.

"Malfoy is just a special type of stupid," Lowe said with a firm nod. "Heard he got into with the youngest Weasley and Granger in Potions. The lot of them lost points for exploding a cauldron. That's why his eyebrows were gone this morning."

"So… he gets a cauldron exploded… and then tries to pick a fight with Bones about her aunt?" Green snorted. "Yeah… a special kind of stupid."

"I wonder how many House points he's lost this year. Think that's why Ravenclaw is so close to them?" Longworth mused.

"Heard it was because two Ravenclaws caught a Slytherin sneaking into the Restricted Section. Madam Pince found Professor Flitwick, and they got points taken. I don't know who the Slytherin was, but my bet is on Harrington down there at the end of the table," Diggory said from a little farther up the Hufflepuff table.

Many heads nodded. Harry wondered if they were the ones that tried to frame him. There had been Slytherins nearby when he returned the book to the stacks that day, but he didn't think one of them was the dark-haired older Slytherin sitting alone. He could have been inside the Restricted Section with an invisibility cloak like the one Harry had.

"I just can't wait for Easter break," Green sighed. "Dad got tickets to see the Chudley Cannons. They stink… but it's professional Quidditch," he said with a shrug.

Pride.

Harry glanced at his yearmate and saw how his chest puffed out, his chin raised. He supposed it was something to be excited about, but he didn't see what he might take pride in. Maybe it was the pride of having a father who could purchase tickets. The other Quidditch-heads in their House asked how he got tickets.

Harry didn't care about the tickets, but what he did care about was another break. "Easter break?" he whispered to Ernie.

His yearmate nodded. "Yeah, mate. April. I think the third or fourth week. We get seven days or something to enjoy the holiday and prepare for the exams in June. It's like the last sprint for the older students. Don't you read the notices in the Common Room?"

Harry frowned. He'd seen them posted to the massive central beam but hadn't looked too closely at them. "Thanks," he muttered.

"There's a load of stuff on the board. I'm surprised you haven't at least looked at it. It's got timetables for when the older students gather to practice spells. There's one for under third-year too. Someone heads up an O.W.L. study group that accepts members as young as a second year. Another group talks about their pets at home. I know Hannah goes and talks about her Puffskein."

Harry nodded. He didn't need any of that stuff, but it was good to know it was there.

Thankfully, they didn't have to deal with Draco in History of Magic that afternoon. He didn't show up for class and no one was complaining. They didn't see him in the Great Hall on Thursday. When he didn't show up for Transfiguration on Friday, they knew something must have happened.

"Does anyone want to ask the Slytherins what happened to their mascot?" Hopkins whispered.

"Nope, just enjoy it," Finch-Fletchley snorted.

Harry glanced at Crabbe and Goyle. Without Malfoy to direct them, they looked lost and kept glancing at Nott or Avery for instruction. Pansy Parkinson, the flat-faced girl who hung around Draco all the time, sat with them and started whispering instructions. The relief on the two boys' faces was almost comical.

"Think they can figure out which way to hold their wand?" Jones giggled.

"No," Green answered evenly as he poked his wand at the snuffbox.

Professor McGonagall always took Fridays to review previous concepts. Harry felt confident in his mouse-to-snuffbox transfiguration work, but he made a minor breakthrough when he sketched the size and type of snuffbox he wanted to create. The Knitting Charm kept rattling around in the back of his head. The wizard needed to understand how to knit, have a clear idea of what they wanted to make, know the measurements, and most-importantly, know the pattern of the object they were going to create with magic.

Harry stared at his wooden dark-wood snuffbox and made sure there weren't any whiskers or a tail. He grinned and wrote down what he'd done.

"That looks good. How did you do it?" Susan whispered.

Ernie heard and craned his head to look from his right. "Looks perfect, any whiskers?"

Harry shook his head and whispered his idea to Susan. She frowned and looked down at her half-transfigured mouse. "I thought I tried that," she grumbled.

He shrugged. What worked for him might not work for someone else. Merriweather was very clear on that. Sharing notes only went so far. It's why the older students or even their parents didn't just give their children their old school notes. She claimed that some still did, but not many. Learning the magic was more important than being given answers.

That last part was something that confused Harry a lot. He couldn't understand why learning magic was more important than having a book or teacher tell them how to cast the spell. Charms was a good example. He could read the spell, perform the incantation, mimic the wand movement, and make something happen. That's precisely what he did in the class.

After Potions, Harry went to the Library instead of lunch. He wasn't all that hungry. Madam Pince was at her desk, writing something in a large ledger. He waved but didn't stop by to talk. Professor Snape, grouchy and moody as ever, called Daisy a dunderhead for not crushing the mistletoe berries before adding them and their juice to the Forgetfulness Potion. That wasn't in the coursebook anywhere he looked.

At first, Harry put it off as Professor Snape being a git, but when he chastised Harper, he seemed genuinely disgusted. They'd done essays on mistletoes and their berries, but Harry had never gotten around to making one of the note-stacks that he had for other subjects, like Charms, Herbology, Transfiguration, and Defense. Potions was not exactly easy, but if you followed the directions, then everything more or less worked out.

After an hour, Harry realized it was time to head to Defense Against the Dark Arts. He frowned. What was the point? Professor Quirrell constantly stuttered, and Harry fought off headaches in every class. He shrugged and went back to reading and taking notes. So far, he hadn't seen anything to suggest that Professor Snape was correct, but he did find that the juice of the berries did make for more potent ingredients. Was it just the juice they needed for the potion?

"No," Harry muttered as he flipped through his copy of Magical Drafts and Potions. Professor Snape had said both the berries and the juice. Was there something he was missing?

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi wasn't much help either. Technically, mistletoes were not a magical herb or fungi, even if they were used in magical potions. He almost gave up when he thought of looking through the ingredients section of the Library.

The Ingredient Encyclopedia had mistletoes and their berries, but there wasn't anything special about the way to prepare them for potions.

He finally struck Galleons with Roots and Shoots: A Herbalist's Guide to Potion Brewing. The only reason he gave it a chance was because it claimed to provide detailed instructions on harvesting, drying, and grinding roots, leaves, and flowers for potions. Mistletoe leaves were used in another potion that he'd only just discovered existed from another tome.

The juice of a freshly broken berry will help mix into a liquid solution and assist in breaking down the fleshy, hard exterior evenly.

Harry sat back and crossed his arms. Shouldn't this have been something that Professor Snape taught them? He tried to remember back. At no point did the Potion Master ever mention the best way to prepare any of the ingredients. He gave them essays and homework to review each ingredient. Maybe the professor expected them to find the answer on their own. Who but Harry and, as much as he hated to admit, Granger would look for something like this without stumbling upon it?

Harry could only come to one conclusion that wasn't all that shocking.

"He's kinda rubbish as a teacher."