Chapter 15, everybody! In which stuff happens….Got another Tumblr post reference in this chapter too, so that's fun. And Harry's rant about Wood comes from Small's rant from The Sandlot, which is a fun movie that you should watch. :D
LadyJaeza, thanks for the review! Glad you're enjoying the story, and super-excited Colin. :D And thanks! I looked up knitting gauge after you said something—maybe Hagrid will bring it up later. :D
Harry Potter © JK Rowling
Over the next several days, Harry was of the opinion that everything he had learned last year had leaked out his ears and was somewhere in the Burrow's garden. Nothing he had learned seemed to have stuck, and the only class he felt otherwise in was Potions, for the obvious reason.
Indeed, Professor Slughorn was effervescent in his praise of both Harry and Ron, announced towards the end of class that he was organizing some much-requested extracurricular Potions labs, please sign the form up front if interested so he had an idea of the lab size. Harry, Ron and Hermione signed up, Neville driven to sign by Snips, who had once again spent most of the class stopping him from making some potentially fatal errors.
The four of them did find an empty classroom during a free period and ran through all the spells they thought they remembered from last year, which made Harry feel better about things. Sure he still felt rusty, but it seemed magic was like learning to ride a bike—theoretically. He had never learned and Dudley only really had a mountain bike because he wanted one, not because he used it.
Defense Against the Dark Arts was…a disaster. There was no sugar-coating it. From the extra-long quiz that was all about Lockhart to being called out on his fame (that Harry really didn't care for) to having a swarm of Cornish Pixies released in the class, Harry's only consolation was that Lockhart couldn't possibly have any connection to Voldemort.
At least, Harry was pretty sure Voldemort had a minimum standard for competence—but then again, he had been bested by a baby, so that was up in the air.
Oliver Wood's passion for Quidditch had not been dimmed over the summer—matter of fact, he seemed more fervent for not being able to play for several months. And, regrettably, Oliver Wood wanted to play rain, shine, tidal wave, whatever—Harry was pretty sure a dragon could nest in the Quidditch pitch and Wood would just say well it's only a LITTLE hazard.
He was also pretty sure that Wood would consider Harry getting his ear chewed off (figuratively) by Filch for tracking mud in also qualified as a little hazard. Shortly after that incident they learned the Scourgify charm in class, and Harry made sure to use it before entering the castle every single time afterwards. After all, he didn't think there were very many more vanishing cabinets that Sir Nicholas could get Peeves to drop.
On the positive side, that did see Harry getting invited to a Death-Day party, which sounded interesting enough—Harry brought it up with Ron and Hermione, who agreed to go with him; Snips bounced up and down and did a passable imitation of Slughorn.
"He's got a point," Hermione said when Ron guessed it. "If we're going to be in the dungeons, we'll need to let the Head of Slytherin know—Professor Slughorn knows the dungeons better than anyone. And you know what happened last Halloween."
Hermione nearly getting killed by the troll because none of the teachers knew she wasn't at the feast. "Fair point," Harry admitted.
Professor Slughorn, intriguingly, was excited about the concept of a Death-Day party, agreed to escort them to it "Just wait for me in the Entrance Hall, would you? I have to escort my first years to the feast." It was workable enough that they all agreed to it.
Which would have had everything leading up to Halloween as very uneventful, if it weren't for the fact that the Slytherin team was trying to muscle in during Gryffindor practice—apparently thanks to Malfoy's father, who was on the school board and wrote up a note that said they could to train their new seeker, who oh by the way was Malfoy and did we mention that Malfoy's father also bought the Slytherin team brand new Nimbus Two-Thousand-And-Ones? Because that was relevant and apparently worth mentioning every time Malfoy crossed Harry's path, often enough that Harry thought Malfoy might be stalking him.
"At least the Gryffindor team didn't buy their way in!" Hermione spat one day, when this became too much. "They got in on pure raw talent!"
This was in a hall between classes, and had enough students around to make the resounding oooohhh very impressive indeed. Malfoy's ears pinked, and he spluttered for a few moments before saying "No one cares what you think, you filthy little Mudblood!"
Harry registered Snips leaving the hood of his robes right as Snips connected with Malfoy's face and bit down hard—Crabbe and Goyle registered that as Harry casting a spell, shot hexes at him, Ron and Hermione countered, Harry pulling his own wand out with the intent to get Snips—
The hall quickly devolved into a full-on duel, and by the time Harry retrieved Snips several teachers plus Hagrid had come in to restore order.
"Everyone who can hear my voice has detention for a week! No, Everson, being deaf doesn't absolve you Filius tell him—and ten points from your respective houses per student!" Professor McGonagall yelled, waving her wand and neutralizing several spells—several wands also flew into her free hand. "Now what started this mess?"
Malfoy jabbed a finger at Harry. "Potter's weird pet attacked me!"
Harry quickly stuffed Snips into his pocket, ignoring his protesting squeak, pointed at Malfoy. "Malfoy started it! He called Hermione a…um…well I don't know what he called her, exactly…."
"He called me a mudblood," Hermione said.
Harry sensed that Malfoy was in trouble from the thunderous expression on McGonagall's face.
Indeed, after reading him the riot act on how bigotry was NOT tolerated at Hogwarts Professor McGonagall docked Malfoy another fifty points and assigned him a month's worth of detention—Harry had the sinking feeling he'd be having to watch his back again.
And then he was distracted by Ron vomiting up slugs.
"Ron!" Hermione yelped. "Are you okay?"
"No," Ron groaned. "I tried to hex someone and it rebounded."
Professor McGonagall sighed, waved her wand for attention again. "Anyone who needs medical attention, please follow Mr. Hagrid to the hospital wing."
"Right—c'mere, Ron, up you get," Hagrid said, picking Ron up. "Neville you too tha' looks like a right nasty stingin' hex…."
Harry and Hermione—as well as a gaggle of other students—trailed after Hagrid, filed into the hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey was bustling everywhere, tending to everyone at once it seemed; Hagrid came back from the cupboard with a bucket.
"Now Ron, this calls for specialized equipment," Hagrid said, plonking the bucket down in front of him. "No choice but to let that peter out, sorry."
Ron groaned, resigning himself to a long, arduous, gross time.
Snips, meanwhile, was perched next to Ron, supervising him vomiting slugs with wings tightly folded—going after Malfoy as he had, Harry suspected that Snips too knew precisely what Malfoy had called Hermione, and had not approved either. Goodness gracious, the little thing was seething.
This wasn't the first time, Harry recalled—Malfoy had used that word before and Snips had lit into him, in the Forbidden Forest during their detention. Harry had meant to ask about that word, thought he could be forgiven the mental slip, considering everything that had followed.
Now, however, maybe he could get an answer. "What's a mudblood?" he asked Hagrid.
Hagrid looked like Harry had said the worst curse word imaginable. "Now where'd you here an awful thing like tha'?"
"Malfoy called Hermione that—it's what kicked the whole thing off," Harry said, shooting Hermione an apologetic look. She waved him off, keeping her head low.
"Well…tha' word is a really filthy lowbrow thing to call anyone who's not a 'pureblood'—not tha' pure if you think callin' someone a name like tha' makes you better'n them. I mean they haven't made a spell yet tha' our Hermione can't do!"
"Yeah," Ron got out before vomiting up another mouthful of slugs. "Although I wish she'd come up with a counterspell for this."
Hermione gingerly patted Ron on the shoulder. "I'll think of something."
About thirty students had ended up with detention following that mess. Of the lot of them, Harry knew that Ron (still occasionally burping up slugs that night) ended up working for Filch, Hermione was helping Madame Pince, and Neville was working in the hospital wing (probably in anticipation of injuries).
Harry felt that the Slytherins scrubbing the dungeons—heck, anyone else—got the better end of the deal than he did.
Because here he was, for the third night of his week's worth of detention, helping Gilderoy Lockhart sort and answer his fan mail. At Lockhart's insistence. And got to hear lectures on how to manage his fame and fighting only gets you bad PR, Harry, never resort to it and so many other things that he wondered if there was a spell that stuffed your ears full of cotton so you didn't have to listen anymore.
Honestly, if Professor McGonagall had wanted Harry to stay out of trouble, she couldn't have been more effective if she had picked this herself. She hadn't, he was assured, because he was pretty sure she wouldn't wish this on her worst enemy.
Reflecting on it, it probably wouldn't have been so bad if he had company, but after the second night when he had to restrain Snips he sent the little thing to the library with Hermione to avoid losing a teacher before the midterms. Not that hexing Lockhart himself wasn't growing very tempting.
Rip…kill…let me kill….
Harry jerked upright—did he hear…what did he just hear?
"Ah but that was a fine time…Harry? Harry are you even listening to me?"
"Uh?" Harry noised, glancing back at Lockhart. "Uh…no, sorry, I thought I heard…something." Pretty sure he had, at least.
"Are you all right, Harry? You look tired," Lockhart said, peering at Harry before looking at a device on his desk. "Well and no wonder, look at the time! Ah well, you know what they say—time flies when you're having fun! I'll see you after dinner tomorrow, same time, same place?"
"Uh…sure," Harry said, too distracted to focus on that—didn't stop him from hustling out of Lockhart's office, though.
Once he was out in the empty hall though, he stayed as still and quiet as possible, senses straining for what felt like an eternity….Nothing. Nothing at all. Maybe he had dozed off.
But looking around…Hogwarts was beautiful and amazing, certainly, but right now it was almost…scary.
He shook his head and hustled for the tower with plans to dive headfirst in his bed and not wake up until breakfast.
Harry was seriously debating on sharing his odd experience with his friends the next morning. On the one hand, if he had really heard it, it was a problem. On the other, if he had just dreamed it, it'd get them all worked up over nothing.
"So I don't know if I dreamt something up or not," Harry told Snips, stretching on his pillow. "Share? Don't share?"
Snips blinked blearily at him, and Harry couldn't help but wonder if small bat-things needed coffee sometimes.
As it turned out though, Harry had something else to distract him at breakfast.
"Hello Harry," Luna Lovegood said, plopping down next to him.
"Hello Luna," Harry returned, before blinking at what she put on the table. "Doing some reading?"
"Actually the article got posted and I figured you'd like a copy," Luna said, handing him a magazine with The Quibbler across it in garish letters. "And one for Hermione and Ron and several for his brothers…where's Colin his dad might like one."
Flipping through it as Neville asked about a copy, Harry's first impression of the magazine was that it was like one of those fun-zines with puzzles and odd tricks in them—although several of the articles had him puzzling more than the actual puzzles.
"Luna," he asked. "What exactly is a crumple-horned snorckack?"
Which started an explanation that lasted through the rest of breakfast—Luna served herself at the Gryffindor table again, pausing occasionally to sell a copy or subscription of the Quibbler.
Actually, that was an idea. "Hey Luna, how much is a subscription to your family's magazine?"