The one with the adrenaline junkie
"Home sweet home." Harry sighed happily as they entered the castle. "It's weird - I know home should be the place you go to when school isn't on, but this place is where home is for me."
"Don't leave then." Draco said, smirking. "Get a job here when you graduate - Uncle Severus will love you for it." Harry laughed and prodded him in the back as they made their way to the great hall.
"I hope Kreacher has made sure there's potatoes." Harry smiled in delight when he saw there was, in fact, roast potatoes being served along with the spaghetti bolognaise.
"Why potatoes?" Susan asked skeptically, helping herself to garlic bread.
"Oh be quiet, Sue, as if they didn't put out the garlic bread just for you." Harry shot back, and squealed when a slice of the named food hit him square on the nose. Susan smirked with satisfaction, taking a roast potato and munching it thoughtfully.
"You know, this sort of works!" She said in surprise. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Liar." She said, sitting next to Draco and poking Susan on the arm. Daphne grinned. "You're just trying to win the bet with Harry."
"I solemnly swear there is no bet." Harry said, sipping his water (Pumpkin juice tasted funny) and raising a brow at Hermione. "You're just paranoid."
"Oh yeah? I wonder why that is?" She gave Harry a pointed look which he proceeded to ignore in favour of helping himself to six potatoes. "I still don't understand where your sudden love of potatoes has come from."
"Charlie." Ron said with his mouth full. Hermione grimaced and hit him on the arm across the table.
Harry nodded in agreement before turning to look at the teacher's table with narrowed eyes. "Dumbledore is missing." He muttered. Daphne shrugged.
"Where now, do you think?" The group shared a look. "At least its not Hagrid this year." Daphne pointed out. Harry nodded emphatically in agreement.
"Poor Hagrid." Neville said, watching sympathetically as Hagrid slumped dejectedly at the staff table. "He really loves that spider."
"It's okay, Neville." Ron said comfortingly. "There's still a many-legathon of them in the forest."
"Er, about that." Harry said awkwardly.
Hermione sighed. "What have you done now?"
Susan was the one to answer her. "Look, after all these assassination attempts on Gandalf-"
Daphne scoffed. "I can't believe we're still calling him that. Once he finds out who Gandalf actually is, his ego will grow even more."
Susan continued as if no one had spoken.
"-and the continued endangerment of students, despite all of Harry's escapades being made public in fourth year -"
"Not all of them." Ron said through a mouthful of food.
"Will you lot quit talking over me!"
"Sorry, sorry! You really will make a good country leader with that attitude, Merlin!"
"Shut up Ron! Anyway, me and Harry may or may not have written to my aunt." Susan sighed, pleased to finally be able to finish her very long winded explanation. "Sure, the forbidden forest is forbidden for a reason, but teenagers love taking risks. They could easily wander too far in to the forest and die." She looked at Ron and Harry pointedly, who shifted in their seats and refused to meet her eye. "I believe they came and moved the colony to a reserve in Canada."
"They left the centaurs, right?" Harry asked. Susan nodded. "Good, I owe them a HUGE thank you for dealing with the Toad. I was thinking of getting them personalised horseshoes. Or would that be disrespectful?" He turned to Daphne, who shook her head.
"I don't think it would be disrespectful, but I don't think it would be particularly useful to them." She said thoughtfully.
"Alrighty, weapons it is!" Harry nodded firmly.
"Harry, no- and he's gone." Hermione sighed exasperatedly and went back to eating her food, stroking Harry's potions textbook protectively in her bag with her free hand. Daphne snorted.
~
Lessons started back up without much fanfare. In Divination, Trelawney greeted them with the eagerness she only had for Harry and Ron.
"Well?" She said immediately, as they all sat down. "Anything to report to the class, boys?" Parvati and Lavender leaned forwards in anticipation.
"Oh yes, lots of things!" Harry nodded emphatically, glasses bouncing on his nose. "I had a dream that a pug tried to catch a bumblebee and got stung on the node."
"Do you mean nose?" Dean asked, eyebrows raised.
"No, her node. When you hurt your node you can't really say node properly." Harry explained.
"So node is nose in hurt nose language?" Ron asked, as if it were a completely normal question.
"Yed. Ooo, I fink we should talk in node language from dow on." Harry grinned and wrinkled his nose as if to prove a point, smirking at Ron.
"No." Neville said firmly. "Doo far, no node language pwease." Ron and Harry's grins grew wider.
"No node wanguage? Bud dat woud be Woldy's wanguage." Harry explained. Neville sighed and shook his head mournfully.
"I dow, id is so sad." He said, whilst Ron stifled his laughter.
Dean and Seamus shared an uneasy glance.
"The craziness is contagious." Dean whispered to the remaining sane Gryffindors. "Now we've lost poor Neville."
"We all saw it coming." Parvati said, shaking her head. "How many of us will be infected by seventh year, do you think?"
Lavender and Seamus shrugged.
"Okay, so the pug got stung. Anything else?" Trelawney prompted, bringing their focus back to the matter at hand.
"No." Harry sat bolt upright. "Oh! Except a really strange dream when me and a bird that was really scared of dying fell in a lake and started drowning."
"Oh!" Trelawney brightened. "You think you saw your death?" Harry frowned thoughtfully.
"Maybe, but I don't think I'll die until my super cool danger mark does. Do you want to see it?" Harry offered eagerly.
Seamus pinched his nose, as if Harry was a toddler that was being deliberately irritating. Which, in fairness, he probably was. "Please tell me your super cool danger mark has nothing to do with your scar." He said, raising a brow.
"Of course not!" Harry gasped and put a hand on his chest with a wounded expression. "My super cool danger mark is a temporary tattoo that will disappear when I die." He lifted his sleeve to reveal a small black tattoo. The tattoo read 'Super cool danger mark.' Harry purposefully didn't show them the arrow next to the writing, pointing up towards his forehead.
"I see." Trelawney said thoughtfully. "You know, child, I was looking at the cards earlier, and they showed me something about a lake. Ronald, dear, why don't you take a look in the crystal ball and tell us what you see."
Intrigued, Parvati and Lavender turned their sharp gaze to Ron, who gulped nervously and peered into the crystal ball.
"I see... huh, that's weird."
"What?" Harry asked.
"I see Dudley, he's holding a gun and pointing it at a hyena. Oh, he shot it! It's laughing, which is weird as it's bleeding out. Oh, it's definitely dead now. Dudley seems very proud of himself."
"How very strange." Harry said. "Well, I think that's all for today. Class dismissed!" The other sixth years, so used to Harry being in charge during HA meetings, all stood and walked out of the room. Trelawney blinked in surprise but let them go.
Harry's favourite time of the week was still assisting Snape with the first to third year classes. It was surprisingly fun, coming up with lesson plans and teaching students. It helped that they were all enthusiastic learners.
They were even all brave enough to ask Snape questions after seeing how casually Snape and Harry debated topics with each other in order to help them extend their knowledge. As loathe as Snape would be to admit it, Harry was delighted to tell anyone who asked that they made quite a good team.
The HA was still a huge hit. Just for the thrill, Harry always scheduled it after curfew, as he found it harder and harder to get a dopamine rush these days. He'd even considered just jumping off the astronomy tower to see if he could copy Neville's accidental magic stunt and bounce.
Oh, maybe he should make his firebolt hover under the astronomy tower and try and land on it instead! That would make him look super cool. Unfortunately, there were probably spells on the tower to prevent students from doing just that. Except, knowing Dumbledore....
He was tempted to sneak out of Hogwarts to try and find Bellatrix so he could play a bit of life-or-death tag again, just for the adrenaline. He may have a slight addiction to danger, but he would never admit it. Especially to Daphne, who would give him the 'I told you so' look he'd grown to despise. Hers was way more smug than Hermione's and Draco's. And usually involved violence.
Anyhow, he still sent Moldy the customary weekly patronus, monologuing about whatever took his fancy. This week, it was turtles.
Dumbledore was as mysterious as ever, which was irritating but also hilarious. He thought he was a main character and Harry couldn't help but giggle about it. Dumbledore was just as insignificant as most of the other irrelevant side characters. Who were slowly becoming more relevant, but Harry lived in denial.
Gryffindor won the quidditch match, of course, and were one step closer to the final. Harry thought it would be an easy win - Cho and Cedric were gone, Malfoy was still only an average seeker, and Cedric and Cho's replacements were still newbies. Harry had it in the bag for sure! Unless he died. Unexpectedly.
Bored out of his mind, Harry decided becoming an animagus may give him enough of a rush to deter him from hunting down Death Eaters for funsies. So he mirrored Sirius and got practicing.
It took two months. But, naturally, Harry's attempts finally worked and he was pleased to see he was a fox. Cute, playful and sneaky. According to Susan, it suited him well. Being the honest student he was, he got himself on the registry. Ron might have said it was only to rub it in the Minister's face that he was a better wizard than him, but Ron was a big fat liar. If the look on Fudge's face was captured in a photograph by Colin, that was Harry and Colin's business alone.
Shortly after and completely unrelated to Harry, Fudge finally resigned and a man named Rufus Scrimgour took over.
"Cornelius, Rufus, why do ministers always have dog names?" Daphne asked, reading the paper in distaste. Harry nodded vehemently in agreement.
"You'll have to change you name when you become minister, Sue. What about Muffin, or Cupcake?" Susan smacked him on the arm. "Ouch! Sorry, sorry! Strawberry Shortcake would be perf-" Harry took full advantage of his new fox form to run away from Susan's outstretched hand. She smacked the air with vengeance. Harry barked teasingly at her and scarpered.
His fox form was his pride and joy. He used it mostly to bug Snape, following him around and playing with the end of his cloak, getting tangled up and barking with delight. Snape despised it and took to carrying out a water spray bottle to use on Harry whenever he could. Harry found out the hard way that foxes are not fans of getting water on their faces. They love swimming though, weirdly.
He would let the younger students pet him and carry him around, even though Daphne would call him a lazy prat afterwards. Harry told her she was just jealous she couldn't be carried everywhere like royalty, and she persuaded Susan to make Dobby and Kreacher refuse Harry access to ice cream for a week.
It was lucky that she conveniently forgot about Winky, Harry thought smugly as the now far-happier-and-slightly-less-addicted-to-alcohol elf handed him a bowl of chocolate ice cream with a fond smile and a pat on the arm.
He and Hermione were still Slughorn's favourites. They were yet to get a grade below an O, and Slughorn had suggested they were on their way to getting O+s in their NEWTS. Harry had pretended to be enthusiastic about the prospect, chattering to Slughorn excitedly about the possibilities it might give him.
He received a letter from Fleur, who was now engaged to Bill.
(Harry was a bit upset he hadn't seen her at all since the tournament, but was pleased when Fleur had asked him to be one of her brides-men along with Viktor and and Cedric. Viktor had also written to Harry, worried he would be forced to wear a dress. Harry had sent him the letter he received from Cedric, who had apparently been shopping with Fleur recently and sent a photograph of a very nice suit, and told him to send it to Viktor when he got the chance.)
The highlight of the new term was going through Dobby and Kreacher's stash of stolen items. To no-one's surprise it was mostly weapons, muggle and wizard. Daggers, knives, guns, spears, swords - you name it, they had it. Harry had laughed uproariously when Dobby had handed him a drawing pin. Deciding to make the most of the opportunity, HA meetings moved on from magic and duelling to muggle weaponry practice. Surprisingly, their numbers stayed the same, even the aloof members quite enjoying learning to wield different weapons effectively.
Hermione and Draco naturally stole some weapons to practice more spells on. They got more and more inventive with the enchantments they used the more time went on. For example, they charmed a lovely set of twin throwing daggers to turn into boxing gloves when released and punch the target on both sides of the face. At Harry's request, they made it so a fly swatter would grow legs and chase their target non-stop until they were able to land a nice firm swat on the target's node. Sorry, nose.
It was an army of weapons with no real need for wielders. At this rate, if Moldy did start a war, he wouldn't even be fighting actual people.