The Cooking Chaos
"What classes do we have today?" Harry asked Hermione as they made their way to the great hall on Monday morning.
"Double Potions, Transfiguration, Charms and Herbology." Hermione reeled off, sitting down next to Luna at the Gryffindor table with a thud. "Morning Ginny, Luna."
"Morning." Grinned Ginny. "Cooking up some more trouble?" She asked Harry, who had fallen quiet and was frowning slightly.
"Ginny, you genius!" He exclaimed, clapping his hands and squealing. "You absolute superstar! 50 points to you! I'll see you in potions Hermione, if you see Ron tell him come to the kitchens!" Harry stood up, shook Ginny's hand vigorously and sprinted off.
Ginny and Hermione shared a look. "Well, I'm not sure what I did, but hopefully it'll provide us all with some entertainment." Ginny said quietly, watching as Harry ran past Colin, paused, turned around, ran back to Colin, grabbed the boy by the sleeve and dragged him out of the hall.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "If he disrupts any of our lessons today I will kill him."
Severus Snape was in an awful mood. He had been waylaid by the Weasley twins all weekend, each time giving him a chunk of hair and ranting about nonsense for hours. Every time he tried to take points off of them, nothing happened.
On a few occasions other students did approach him. The Lovegood girl had simply talked about non-existent creatures for hours, the Weasley girl had ranted about her huge crush on Harry Potter (which was a very obvious fake crush), and Diggory had wanted advice on how to deal with his nerves about the tournament. Snape had slammed his office door in the boy's face, unable to deal with hormonal teenagers any longer, even if half of them were faking it.
He put his conversation with Harry- wait, no, Potter out of his mind, and decided to write to Lupin so he could deal with the boy's childhood trauma and current issues instead. Maybe he should include the boy's apparent spiral into insanity too?
When he found the posters, clearly forged (Minerva would never call herself Minnie), he had gone straight to her office and slammed it onto her desk.
"Whoever made these should be expelled for false advertisement and forgery." Minerva had picked up the poster and studied it carefully.
"It seems perfectly legitimate to me. Harry Potter and the Weasley twins were singing your praises yesterday afternoon, and this Minnie McGonagall seemed to think it was an excellent idea. I wonder if she and I are related?" McGonagall smirked as Snape sputtered.
"I-but-"
"Besides," Minerva continued. "It clearly states the opportunity was only open for this weekend. It is now midnight, therefore Monday morning. I see no further issue." Minerva stood. "I'm going to bed, if you don't require me for anything else. Oh, and Severus? It was a very kind and compassionate thing you offered to do this weekend, well done." With that she left, leaving an incredibly furious Severus behind.
It was safe to say Severus had no patience left for the coming week. He had the fourth year Gryffindor and Slytherins first thing on Mondays, so he hoped beyond hope that Potter wouldn't test his patience.
Alas, the odds were clearly against him, as the chaos began a few minutes after Potter entered the room.
"The instructions are on the board. Follow them." Severus ordered as he sat behind his desk. Usually he would prowl amongst the students, critiquing, but he had no energy left after the torturous weekend he'd had.
He kept his eye on Potter. The boy was being normal today it appeared, silently adding eggs to his potion as Weasley read him the directions from the large recipe book in his hands.
It took Severus longer than he was proud of to realise everything that was wrong with that statement.
"Potter!" He barked. Harry looked up, blinking innocently.
"Yes, Professor?"
"What are you doing?" Severus narrowed his eyes dangerously at the boy. Funnily enough, so did Granger.
"It's Dobby's birthday, we're making him a cake!" Harry responded, looking at the Potions Professor as though he had three heads. "What else would be doing in cooking class?"
"Potter." Severus could feel another headache coming on. "This is Potions. Cooking and Brewing are not the same. 10 points from Gryffindor."
"No way, you forgot it was Dobby's birthday!" Harry exclaimed, pointing at him accusingly.
Ron gasped loudly. "Professor, how could you? You know how much this birthday means to Dobby!"
Severus looked between the two students, at a complete loss on how to react.
"Tell Dobby happy birthday from me." Daphne said with a smirk. She was beginning to like Potter.
"30 points from Gryffindor for acting like fools and disrupting my lesson." Severus said weakly.
Draco was frowning in the corner. Where had he heard the name Dobby before?
"20 points to Daphne for being thoughtful." Harry retorted.
"Don't you mean Slytherin? And you can't give points anyway, you aren't a prefect." Dean pointed out.
"Not house points, Dean, keep up! They're people points!" Harry said proudly.
"And what are people points, exactly?" Neville piped up.
"People points are your personal points. Anyone can give anyone people points, but only a select few people can take them away again."
"Like who?" Lavender asked.
"Me, Daphne, Dumbledore, Minister Fudge, Sirius Black and You-Know-Who. I would have let Ron and Hermione, but Ron would show blatant favouritism and Hermione would be far too strict." Harry stated. Hermione rolled her eyes and Dean and Seamus burst into laughter.
"Hey!" Ron pouted, crossing his arms.
A few people had flinched at the mention of Voldemort, but most of them saw the funny side.
"So how do I check my points then?" Daphne asked. "It would be no fun earning them if I don't know how many I have."
"By tapping your school badge with your wand and saying 'View Stats'. The teachers have to tap their nose as they don't have badges." Harry demonstrated and a zero appeared above his head. "Everyone is currently at zero except for Daphne and Ginny Weasley. Oh, and Professor Snape is at minus 10 for forgetting Dobby's birthday."
"Enough!" Snape snarled, sick of Potter's nonsense. "Potter, 50 points from Gryffindor for disruption and two weeks detention. Get out of my classroom!"
"Yes, good idea Sir, I should go take Dobby his cake! Come on Ron, Daphne." Harry said brightly, standing up and taking a nicely decorated cake out of his cauldron, handing it to Ron and skipping over to Daphne, dragging her out of the classroom.
"Erm, sorry Professor Snape, but I should probably-"
"Just go, Weasley." Snape sighed, rubbing his temples. Ron hurriedly left the room, careful not to drop the cake.
"100 points to Hermione for finishing the cake whilst we were talking." Harry said he, Ron and Daphne walked to the kitchens.
"You owe me, Potter, dragging me out of class like that." Daphne scolded, but she didn't sound particularly annoyed.
"Sorry Daphne. Have an extra 10 points for coming with me!"
"And what's so special about these points, Potter? Is there a prize for whoever gets the most or something?"
"There is. The winner gets a stuffed toy." Harry said seriously. "Everyone loves stuffed toys."
"Right..."
"Harry, aren't we supposed to be taking this to the kitchens?" Ron asked, holding up the cake. Harry gave him a confused look.
"Why?"
"Because it's for Dobby?"
"No it isn't. It's for Professor Sprout. What made you think it was for Dobby?" Harry asked, looking at Ron as if he were stupid.
"You said- never mind. So why aren't we going to the greenhouses?"
"The plants might get jealous. We are taking it to the great hall, and we will sing to her at dinner!"
A few hours later, Harry had successfully skived all of his lessons and met up with the Weasley twins.
"Keep her out of the hall until you get the signal, got it?"
"Got it."
"Okay, see you in a few minutes." Harry skipped into the hall and sat down next to Hermione.
"Harry James Potter, you are in so much trouble!" Hermione scolded. "What possessed you to think it was okay to interrupt lesson time like that? You need to focus on your studies in class time, especially now you're in this stupid tournament."
"Relax Mio, potions won't help me against a dragon." Harry said offhandedly.
Hermione blinked. "A dragon? What dragon?"
"I don't know, I just made it up." Harry shrugged. Then he noticed the hall was completely full, except for one empty space at the teacher's table and two empty seats at the Gryffindor table. "Shhh, it's starting!"
"What's starti-" Before she could finish, the doors to the hall flew open with a bang and the Weasley twins escorted Professor Sprout into the room.
"Everybody sing!" Harry yelled, jumping out of his seat. "One, two, three! Happpy birthdaaaay to youuuu."
Slowly but surely, everyone began to join in as Fred Weasley pulled out Professor Sprout's chair for her and George lit the candles on the cake in front of her. After they finished singing, everyone began clapping and cheering.
"Thank you everyone!" Sprout said, teary-eyed. "How did you know it was my birthday?"
"Professor Snape told me." Harry responded. "He asked me to make the cake for you." Snape's eyes widened but he didn't say anything as Sprout, who was conveniently sat next to him, wrapped him in a hug. He did, however, glare daggers at Potter.
"50 points to Snape! Harry declared. And 200 points to Professor Sprout for being an amazing teacher and because it's her birthday."
"Professor Sprout is winning!" Ron cheered.
The students who weren't in the potions class looked confused, but it didn't take long for the fourth years to spread the word. Soon enough, everyone was giving points to everyone left and right.
"Hey! Stop abusing this privilege!" Harry exclaimed. "Okay, any points not given to anyone by me are now removed. From now on only Me, Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, Dumbledore, Hermione, Cedric, Luna and ex-Professor Lupin can give points." He declared. "The people who can take them away for everyone who wasn't there when I said it earlier are Me, Daphne, Dumbledore, Minister Fudge, Sirius Black and You-Know-Who." Harry said proudly.
"I thought he was joking about that?" Neville whispered to Ron.
"Nope." Ron chuckled, before turning to Harry. "Wait, hold on. So you'll let Hermione give points and not me?" Looking mildly offended.
"Ron, you're great and all but you would give your favourite people loads of points and take away points from everyone you hate for no reason. Hermione is allowed to give them as she'll be fair, but she can't take them away cause she'd be far too strict about it. Sorry mate."
"Eh, fair point." Ron said, shrugging.
"Sirius Black, the mass murderer?" Cedric questioned. "The one who was targeting you?"
"Yes, of course. Why shouldn't he be allowed too? Just because he's an escaped prisoner doesn't mean he's not a human with feelings." Harry argued.
"Yes, preezoners also 'ave feelings." Fleur said firmly.
"Not the point, but okay." Cedric said. "And you-know-who?"
"Oh, that was just for funsies." Harry said, aware the entire school was listening and Dumbledore was probably going to tell him off later. "Anyway, must skedaddle, I promised Dobby a slice of cake."
"Here you go Mr Potter." Sprout cut two slices of cake and levitated them to Harry. "One for you and one for this Dobby fellow."
"Thank you Professor!" Harry blew her a kiss and left the hall, most of the school watching him go.
"I'm going after him, I want to know what magic he used to make his point system thing." Hermione said, standing up and jogging to catch up with Harry.
Then Malfoy had a light bulb moment.
"POTTER? Why are you giving cake to my house elf!" He demanded, storming after the raven-haired boy.
Harry giggled, pulling the invisibility cloak Colin had just returned to him over his head.
~~~~~
Dear Sirius,
The spells you came up with to help with the point system worked! I even used one of the charms to stop Snape taking points away from Gryffindor, but I don't think he's noticed yet. Anyway, thanks for the help, and for telling me it was Sprouts Birthday. She almost cried with happiness when she saw the cake!
Just a bit of warning; if we ever see you in person and Hermione is with me, she's going to yell at you then harass you about how you came up with those spells. I had to tell her you're helping cause she threatened me, and she's scary when she threatens me.
From your favourite Godson,
Harry J.P
Sirius Black, crouched in a small cave somewhere in Algeria, smirked.
~~~~
Severus entered Minerva's office without knocking, collapsed into the chair in front of her desk, and handed her a chunk of black hair.
"Your turn." He said grimly.