Snips and Scars In Which OWLs are Discussed, a harry potter fanfic

Chapter 68, everybody! Harry gets the joy of dealing with modern BS in the nineties (seriously, rereading the book hits hard anymore).

Seriously does anyone stick with History of Magic after their OWLs? Feel like Hermione and Percy probably did, but I also get the distinct impression they were pretty lonely in the class. Also the question of how Hogwarts is paid for—I know the price of textbooks is often brought up but I think the cost of tuition itself was brought up maybe once?

Gardengirl6, thanks for the review! Ooh yes that's a good idea….

Slytherinsal, thanks for the review! Did not know that about the word, only time I ever heard it was in Order of the Phoenix (which then bears asking why it's there). True! Now it's just a matter of them getting the spare time to tinker….

Juxshoa, thanks for the review! Apparently Seamus' family did not cancel their subscription to the Prophet….

Seamus got ready in record time and left, which promised to get old real quick.

"It's like he thinks he'll catch the weird disease from me," Harry said as he went downstairs.

"Ignore him," Dean told him. "Seamus will come round eventually."

"I don't get it—Seamus knows me—his mother knows me—why would he think that?"

"Some people believe everything they read," Neville said, following Dean out the portrait hole as Harry detoured over to where Ron was slouched against a table.

"Mornin'," Ron greeted blearily, head propped up in his hand. "Hermione made me get up early—said we had to be handy in case the first years needed directions. Like they didn't get a map with their letters."

"Did you remind them about the map?" Harry asked as Ron struggled upright.

"Yeah—told the boys that that map had better be glued to their hand until they got the basic navigating down pat."

Which was when a first-year tugged on Ron's robe. "Mr. Weasley? I can't find my map."

"Seriously? It's only been one day!"

"What's your name?" Harry asked the first year.

"Oi—oi mate it isn't a multiple-choice question," Ron said after a few beats of the kid stammering and staring at Harry. "What's your name?"

"Uh-uh—Tommy Dorson."

Harry tugged out his wand. "Accio Tommy Dorson's map." Caught it when it came zooming out of the boys' dorm, handed it over to Tommy.

"How'd you do that?" Tommy asked, taking the map.

"It's called magic, you'll be learning a lot of it here," Harry told him. "Actually, that's the one Professor Flitwick is offering to teach people during his office hours…did we ever get those?"

"I think we were too busy picking apart Umbridge," Ron said. "You can ask Professor McGonagall at breakfast when she gives you your schedule…come to think of it we need to get to breakfast and get our schedules."

Tommy ran ahead of them as they headed down to breakfast. "Seriously, why didn't you make Prefect?" Ron asked. "You handled that better than I did."

"I still think it's the honorary Slytherin thing," Harry told him. "Plus the bit about talking to snakes, and then second year, and fourth year probably put a dent in it too."

"I'll maybe give you the Slytherin thing, but the rest is really reaching."

"Yeah, well…wonder what our schedule's going to look like."

First up for them was History of Magic, as it turned out—Ron took the opportunity to catch up on his sleep, apparently oblivious to Hermione's seething.

"What are you going to do if I decide not to share my notes with you this year?" she demanded after class.

"Fail my History OWL," Ron said promptly.

"Does anyone even go for a NEWT in that class?" Harry asked.

"Percy did, but he's also a masochist who said that there were only five people total at the NEWT level."

"Well the good news is, Potions is up next," Harry said, cutting off what promised to be a sharp rebuttal from Hermione. "Should be interesting."

Unlike History of Magic, Potions started off with Professor Slughorn lecturing them on the importance of their OWL year.

"You see, once we get to the NEWT level we're really going to be dealing with some dastardly difficult potions," Slughorn told them. "So dastardly, in fact, that I can't in good conscience accept anyone who has anything less than an Exceeds Expectations in their OWLS—student safety reasons, don't you know. I do have confidence in you lot, but I can't deny that some of you won't make it if you continue on as you've been doing. I have remedial potion lessons up here with the lab times and my office hours, make sure you copy them down…."

Once that was done, they moved on to covering the Draught of Peace, which, according to Slughorn, was likely to be on their OWLS "but not guaranteed."

Snips had, upon them entering the dungeon, flown up to a perch Professor Slughorn had set up for him, but once they got started he took to circling around the dungeon and swooping down on anyone who started to stray from the instructions and towards certain doom (Neville, unsurprisingly, got a lot of Snips' attention). Slughorn, meanwhile, ambled about the class, looking in on their potions and quizzing them on where they were on the Draught and how the ingredients specifically affected the potion. Harry, who had spent the past several years being interested in the topic and under Snips' spare tutelage, did fairly well, possibly only second to Hermione, who had been neck and neck with him for tops in Potions for a while now. Although it was starting to become easy to tell who would be having to do extra studying.

"I know moonstone is used in Wolfsbane, but isn't it associated with lunacy too?" Ron asked Harry as they supervised their simmering cauldrons, Harry with one eye on his watch. "How is that calming?"

"And then what happens if you use actual moon rocks?" Harry asked.

"Isn't the moon made of green cheese?"

"No—Muggles went and visited it back in the sixties, it's pretty much made of rocks and dust. Plus there's no air up there, so there's no wind, so the footprints are still up there."

"That's—you're making that up. Muggles did not walk on the moon and if they did how."

"Rockets," Harry said. "Seven minutes, add the hellebore."

"Very good, very good—eh, Gregory, make sure you've got the times for the remedial Potions classes, you too Vincent, Neville—everyone get a vial of your potion, label it with your name, put it up here on my desk," Slughorn announced at the end of the lesson. "Homework is twelve inches on the properties of moonstone, have it ready by class on Friday—Harry can I borrow you and Snips for the remedial classes? I'll be needing extra eyes—Hermione I'd like you too but I understand if Prefect duties on top of everything else is too much—"

"I'll see what I can do, Professor," Hermione said brightly.

"I might be able to spare some time for that, my school schedule isn't as busy as hers," Ron offered.

"Snips and I will definitely be there," Harry assured him.

"Excellent, excellent," Slughorn beamed. "Off to lunch then, don't want to keep you too much longer—also I'll be sending you letters on when the first Slug Club meeting is this year, want to see everyone's schedule first…."

They did finally extricate themselves and hasten to lunch, Ron fishing out the copy of the Quibbler he had gotten that morning and propping it up so he could read while eating. Hermione rolled her eyes, turned her attention to Harry after their moment of silence.

"So you and I have Ancient Runes after lunch," she told him.

"Probably we get to hear about how important our OWL year is going to be," Harry predicted.

"Pity I can't jot that down for Divination," Ron sighed. "At least I know two classes I can dump next year."

"I honestly don't know why you keep at it," Hermione told him.

"Free tea."

"Ron—Ron there's tea in front of you right now that you're not paying for." Rolled her eyes at Harry—blinked at him scowling as Seamus sped by. "What's the matter with you?"

"Seamus," Harry sighed, explaining what had happened last night and that morning to her.

"Well that doesn't surprise me," she said, shaking her head. "Lavender was the same way before I shut her down."

"What I don't get is why."

"Haven't you noticed what's going on in the Prophet?"

"Honestly I stopped reading when they canned Quentin," Harry said. At least the Quick-Quotes Quill had found employment with The Quibbler, and was apparently more than happy to write scathing articles on the various ways the Minister was "corrupting the free speech which witches and wizards so rightly deserved." Which, true. "Remus and Mrs. Malfoy were the only holdouts at our house."

"Fudge has been spending all his time trying to discredit you and Dumbledore," Hermione said, flipping a copy of the Prophet open and pointing at some of the articles. "He started out pretty subtle, but now they're not even trying to hide it—look here. Dumbledore is far past his prime and gone from eccentric to downright dangerous. His barmy behavior is a threat to good wizards everywhere. And then you—Harry Potter has let his fame go to his head, happy to foment panic with threats of You-Know-Who returning after his attempt to steal glory with the Triwizard Tournament fell through."

Okay now Harry was running hot. "The tournament I didn't enter? That I wanted out of? That I was able to get out of with everyone's help? That tournament?"

"Yes, that's the one."

"This is so STUPID—WHY would I want to fake that? I don't even like all the attention! I didn't do anything as a baby, and I didn't get myself out of the graveyard, Kreacher did!"

"Although now it explains all the rebuttal articles in The Quibbler," Ron said, turning a page of the magazine.

"I can't believe you read that," Hermione said to him.

"Bold words from someone holding a copy of the Prophet."

"Besides, I thought Skeeter was arrested," Harry said.

"Apparently she started a trend," Hermione fumed.

"It's not like there's only one scummy journalist out there," Ron pointed out. "Ah, finally, some clarification on wrackspurts."

"Ron."

"Look, the wrackspurt thing has been bugging me for years."

"This is why you're still in Divination, Ron."

"Honestly, the reason I'm still in Divination is because there was no topping you storming clean out of class that time."

Hermione, at least, seemed mollified as they headed for their next classes.