Switched

It didn't take very long at all for Harry to decide that Hogwarts was bloody great.

It did have its low points — Defence class was, as Harry had predicted, a wretched disappointment—

-v-

(Mon 2 Sept)

Professor Quirrell was a nervous looking man who would be in his late thirties if he were a muggle. His classroom smelled faintly of garlic, and he was thin and pale in the way of a person who had recently been ill. He certainly didn't look like he'd just spent a summer in Albania...unless Harry was completely mis-remembering where Albania was. He thought it was one of those Mediterranean countries, by Greece? Anyway, the professor spent the better part of their first 'lesson' stuttering at them about the trip he'd made during his sabbatical, first travelling up the Nile deep into Africa, then across to the Arabian peninsula. He took a ship to Bombay and came back to the Mediterranean the long way around — north through all the -stan countries and then west through the Ukraine and back into Europe.

Harry had the impression that the professor was trying to establish some credibility as an adventurous, outgoing, Monroe-like (or at least Whitney-like) figure, but he didn't really manage it, given the aforementioned bloody stuttering. When he'd said "W-W-Welcome to Defence Against the D-Dark Arts. My n-name is P-Professor Qu-Qu-Qu-irrell," any hopes Harry had had of liking the class plummeted. He wasn't sure even learning to fight other mages in lessons would make up for having to sit through an entire lecture of that.

And, he realised, letting his head fall to the desk as the professor finally ended his torturous recitation of his past year's adventures and got down to the business of what he would be teaching, they weren't even going to be learning to fight other mages. Not even in theory. Oh, no. They were going to spend the entire term learning how to deal with household pests and non-magical animals. And next term, they were going to discuss Emergency Situations, like getting lost in the muggle world (Oooh, scary... Not), and learn how to escape from non-magical humans who might want to hurt them. Not even fight back against people trying to hurt them, escape. As in, run away.

Harry was fairly certain he didn't need to spend an entire year learning how to deal with magical pest infestations and 'dangerous' non-magical animals like dogs or badgers — how often did anyone ever run into a bloody badger out in the wild?! — and explaining how to summon the Knight Bus (if he ever managed to get lost, he didn't think he'd ever been lost in his entire life) and read maps and shite would take maybe one lesson? and "kick 'em in the fork and run like hell" was even easier than summoning the bloody bus!

Nowhere on the itinerary was there even a hint of anything to do with any actual Dark Arts. Harry had probably learned more about defending himself from Dark Arts just hanging out in Borgin and Burke's over the past few weeks and figuring out how to recognise if something was cursed. (Almost everything was cursed.)

Harry wasn't the only one who was disappointed with the prospect of more 'lessons' from Quirrell. He didn't really think Flitwick would let them try to test out of the class when he suggested it, grousing about the stuttering professor on the way back to Ravenclaw Tower. He was pretty sure Danny didn't think he would, either. But the other boy took the suggestion a lot more seriously than Harry had expected.

"Can't hurt to ask, I guess. I'm telling you, that Quirrell, he's bad news."

"What, really? I didn't actually think he'd go for it. Or you, for that matter." Danny gave him a wan smile, rubbing at his forehead, smudging... "Do you have muggle makeup on your face?"

"Oh, shite, I didn't even think about that," he muttered, attempting to flatten his fringe over what looked like a nasty scar of some sort. It wasn't raised, Harry hadn't noticed it in relief when the makeup was intact, but it was a livid, not-entirely-healed colour. "Uh, yeah. It's... I'm not good enough at glamourie to hide this, yet." He gave an awkward shrug.

"You're also not good enough at hair-taming charms."

"Piss off," he muttered, trying to smudge the makeup back into place instead, which was completely futile without a mirror, just revealed more of the mark.

"Is that a sowilo?" When Danny sort of just shrugged awkwardly, Harry added, "Who the hell carved a rune into your face? And why?"

Danny sighed. "Can we get back to our room, first? It's sort of...private."

-ʌ-

Madam Pince resolutely refused to bend the rules for anyone—

-v-

(Fri 6 Sept)

Madam Pince gave him a narrow-eyed glare over her specs, making her look even more like a vulture than she usually did — Harry wasn't being mocking, something about the narrowness of her face and the sharpness of her nose, with her plain black robes and ruffled white collar, and how severely she pulled her silver hair into its bun made her look slightly...vulture-like (that was really the only thing Harry could think of with her looking at him like that).

He made an effort to keep eye contact and not fidget, his hopeful, expectant, not at all doing this because I'm specifically trying to get on your good side but because I actually want to keep up with my studies in muggle subjects -expression firmly in place. Though he was only signing up — or trying to sign up — for extra lessons because he'd overheard one of Corner's older cousins telling him in the Common Room that the only way to get on the librarian's good side was to join her muggle maths and literature lessons. And it would still probably take a few years for her to warm up to him.

Harry wasn't entirely certain it would end up being worth it to maybe, eventually get the old witch everyone agreed was the biggest stickler for rules in the entire school to bend them for him and let him into the Restricted Section — she was worse than Filch, the caretaker everyone hated, who hated everyone right back — but it couldn't hurt to try, he thought. Especially since the worst part about school had always been (and still was) the fact that Harry was trapped in lessons with other people and had to work at their pace. If there were different study-groups for different levels and participation was voluntary, it stood to reason that Harry could move to a more advanced group if (when) the pace of the first-years started to chafe. And, since participation was voluntary, everyone would actually want to be there. There wouldn't be anyone like Dudley, who considered having to learn things to be a horrible imposition on time spent palling around with their mates, which was clearly the entire point of school, as everyone knew.

After what seemed like a very long time, she let out an annoyed little huff, but pulled her wand and conjured a sheet of paper with a list of meeting times and books he would presumably need to read on it. Harry caught it out of the air and blinked at it, surprised. He hadn't realised that was possible, conjuring something as complex as written documents. Obviously, now that he'd seen it done, it made sense that it would be...if a person could concentrate on all the details of a thing at once, there was no reason they shouldn't be able to do something like that — Danny had been explaining conjuration the other day, since they had nothing better to do in Transfiguration — but Harry was pretty sure it was bloody impressive.

"Mind you copy that down before it unravels."

Harry nodded.

"And tell that old coot next time you see him that I'm not going to bend the rules for you or anyone else, and he has no business leading you to believe that I might."

"Er...excuse me?" Had she used legilimency on him? Damn it! He hadn't even noticed! He really needed to get Blaise to practise occlumency with him. Wait. Shite. Did that mean she knew he'd been studying occlumency? As in, he'd been reading books he shouldn't, in defiance of the rules she definitely wasn't going to bend? Bugger!

An expression that might have been a smirk pulled at her lips, for the briefest of moments. "What you do outside of school is none of my business or concern. I enforce the rules of Hogwarts and its Library, not the laws of Magical Britain. But yes, you could stand to practise that particular skill a bit more." She pointed at the conjured paper in his hand. "If you're not early, you're late. Now go away, I'm busy," she said, dismissing him with a bird-like quirk of her head toward the door, already shelving the next book on her cart.

Wait. Did that mean she'd heard him thinking about her resemblance to a vulture, earlier? Obviously he couldn't ask, in case she hadn't, but still... Sorry, I didn't mean anything insulting by it, he thought in her direction as loudly and clearly as he could. Aloud, he only said, "Yes, Ma'am," and booked it before he could offend her any more.

(When he arrived for the first literature lesson, though, he realised that she'd given him the reading list and meeting times for the third- and fourth-years' group, rather than put him with the handful of other first-years he knew had at least been talking about signing up for this, so he couldn't have offended her too badly.)

-ʌ-

And Harry hadn't been wrong about Gryffindors not appreciating getting shown up in lessons, but Ravenclaws didn't like it much better. About half of the students in his year were terribly impressed by the most basic of magics (only two other people in his first Transfiguration lesson managed to turn their bloody matchstick into a needle), and half of them called him a showoff or teacher's pet for already knowing...pretty much everything they were going to do in practical lessons for the entire year.

Honestly, Harry preferred the showoff/teacher's-pet option. It was sort of difficult to make him uncomfortable (or at least he thought so), but the way the other students went all awe-struck when he did something like come up with coloured variations on the basic light charm because he was bloody bored, sitting in class practising lumos and nox for hours, was definitely off-putting. In fact, the way everyone else sort of acted like magic was...complicated, was sort of off-putting in general. Sure it could be difficult, particularly when he was figuring out how to do a spell the first time, but it wasn't exactly rocket science, was it? Especially with a professor to show you what it should look like.

-v-

(Mon 9 Sept)

"Very well, then," Professor Flitwick chortled, floating across the front of the classroom on a little cushion thing he'd charmed to hover around like a tiny magic carpet or something. (Except, not actually a magic carpet, because apparently those were illegal. Because...reasons.) It rose a bit so that his head was about where they might expect a normal human professor's head to be and carried him over to his lectern (which was normal human height, because...reasons?). He liked to make it bob from one side of the classroom to the other while he talked, as though he was pacing. Harry thought learning how to do that seemed much more interesting than practising the very, very basic Torch Charm, creating a little ball of light at the end of their wands. "Now that we all have a decent grasp on the theory, let's take a few minutes to practise, and then we'll take turns demonstrating for the class, shall we?"

The class as a whole took this as permission to break into excited chatter, turning to talk to or practise with friends sitting nearby. Blaise, for example, turned around to continue the conversation they'd been having before the lesson began. "Anyway, if you really want, I can owl Mira for the ritual, but I'm not sure we could do it here without pinging the wards."

"Do I want to know what you two are planning?" Theo asked, with a sigh which said he didn't want to know, but tell him anyway.

"Harry still thinks Coco is the coolest pet ever," Danny explained, obviously exasperated. ("And Harry is still completely right about that," Harry inserted, smirking.) "And no, I don't think you could do it here. Not in the Castle for sure, and maybe not on the grounds at all. Can't you just...let it go? At least don't talk about it in class. Just...practise the stupid charm or something before Draco notices we're not and tattles. Lumos." A little white light flicked on at the end of his wand. "Nox."

Theo nodded. "Lumos. Summoning even something as minor as a boggart is a class-D offence. Nox."

Harry and Blaise followed their lead, letting the conversation drop for perhaps a minute, lights flickering on and off. Harry had only cast this one a couple of times before today, just to make sure he could. He could probably count on one hand the number of times he'd ever actually needed a torch, so he hadn't bothered with it until he was going through the spells they'd be doing in class, earlier in the week. It wasn't difficult, though. It was easy enough that Harry had already gotten bored with it, actually, and started to experiment with casting it slightly 'wrong' — a little twist on the pulse of magic that ignited it could make it appear a short distance in front of him; more or less magic made it brighter or dimmer; and with the right focus, he found he could fail to produce light of some wavelengths, making the spell-glow different colours.

"How are you doing that?" Danny asked, watching him cast a series of increasingly blue light charms.

Harry shrugged. He was doing it intentionally, but he didn't really have the words to describe exactly how he was doing it. "Er...sort of casting it like...higher pitched?"

As though summoned by his inability to explain, the professor floated over, clapping excitedly. "Very good, Mister Potter! Five points to Ravenclaw! Everyone, look here!" Everyone turned to stare at Harry, with his blue Torch Charm. "Mister Potter has worked out something we'll be experimenting with in a few years—" The stares took on a much more intimidated tone. Thanks, Professor... Harry thought sarcastically. Just what I needed... "—modifying charm effects through their casting, without altering the spell itself! Very good indeed! Though, hardly less than I would expect from Lily Evans's son!" Never mind that Harry wasn't actually Lily's son. He wondered, idly, what the little Charms professor might expect from Bellatrix Black's son. "Perhaps you'd like to be the first to demonstrate the standard casting...?"

Harry sighed. "Nox." He wasn't actually sure, he realised as he cancelled the blue version of the charm, whether he needed to do that before re-casting the white version. He'd have to try that later. When he wasn't surrounded by twenty other first-years. "Lumos."

"Of course, of course. And now you, Mister Tonks?"

The lesson moved on, with other students still sending the occasional impressed, jealous, resentful, or unnerved look at Harry, just for...fooling around. Honestly, there was nothing particularly advanced or difficult about anything he did just to entertain himself in lessons...

-ʌ-

Lessons, of course, moved at the pace of the slowest student in the class. In lessons with the Slytherins, that was usually Vincent Crabbe. Out of the Gryffindors, it was Ron Weasley (his secondhand books were decidedly not the reason most people were laughing at him), and out of the Hufflepuffs...maybe Sally Perks? Ravenclaw only had Potions with the Hufflepuffs (and, starting the second week, flying lessons), and Potions wasn't nearly as showy as Charms or Transfiguration. It was a lot harder to tell how other students were doing unless they actually blew something up. Perks was just the student who seemed the most lost when it came to preparing their ingredients and equipment, and who most regularly got questions wrong when Snape quizzed them or asked them to demonstrate a technique for the class.

Snape might have been Harry's favourite professor, if only because he had even less patience for teaching than Harry had for sitting around waiting for other people to learn, and therefore some sympathy for the fact that Harry was bored out of his skull. The first Potions lesson, Harry figured, had been meant to assess the students' abilities. The second was dead boring, discussing lab safety protocols (which were incredibly common sense, but maybe should've been mentioned before trying to brew anything, even as a test, since Perks and Leanne Malone had managed to let their Boil Cure boil over and panicked when they made their hands all warty trying to clean it up) and how to clean and maintain their equipment (which was all in the first chapter of their book, which only about half of the Ravenclaws and none of the Hufflepuffs seemed to have bothered to read). They didn't start discussing ingredient preparation and stirring techniques until the third lesson, and didn't so much as set another cauldron over a flame for weeks.

-v-

(Thurs 5 Sept)

"Stay behind, Potter," Snape said, almost idly, his soft voice somehow cutting through the sound of the students packing up their things without any apparent effort. He didn't even look up from organising his own notes and things up at the front of the room.

Shite.

Harry had thought, when the Professor hadn't said anything during the lesson, that he didn't mind Harry reading Whitney's account of his first glimpse of the ruins of Machu Picchu under the table rather than taking notes on the safety precautions they were meant to follow in the lab. He had been paying attention, enough to know that they were mostly common sense and he didn't have any enchanted clothes or jewellery, and he was pretty sure the spells he used to plait the top half of his hair out of his face and clean his teeth in the morning were instantaneous — some of the girls used hairstyling charms that worked like hairspray and pins and elastic bands and so on that were sort of constantly in effect, but Harry had to tie off the end of his plait with a bit of ribbon or an actual elastic, so he was pretty sure his wasn't — so he didn't think he had anything to worry about, as far as taking special precautions in the lab went. But it was possible the professor hadn't realised that Harry had been paying attention — that did happen sometimes — and had just been cleverer than the average teacher in not drawing attention to that fact in the middle of the lesson.

Harry couldn't count the number of times he'd been told off for 'disrupting the class' by 'not paying attention' when he wasn't doing anything disruptive, it was the teacher who decided to take several minutes away from their lecture or exercises or whatever to yell at him.

Danny, who had warned Harry that Snape wasn't going to like him reading under the table, gave him a half-sympathetic, half I told you so look as he filed out the door with everyone else. Harry, not entirely certain what he ought to be doing, but not inclined to hover indecisively around his seat looking anxious just because he didn't know how a dressing-down was expected to go here (he'd made it three whole days without being told off for anything), made his way up to stand politely before the professor's desk.

Snape exchanged one folder from his briefcase for another, altogether more interesting-looking one (thicker and somewhat tatty around the edges, stained with something a very poisonous-looking green on one corner), presumably notes for his next lecture. Professors spent far more hours in lessons than students. Harry had the rest of the morning and the first half of the afternoon free — or rather, he would be attending his first extracurricular biology lesson after lunch, but that wasn't actually required. Professor Snape would have another class in fifteen minutes. (Slytherin and Gryffindor firsties had their Potions lessons on Fridays, so it couldn't be them, but someone.) At long length, he looked up with a sigh and an exasperated glare.

Harry kept his peace, rather than make excuses for himself. Not that he didn't think it was a valid excuse that he had been paying attention, actually, he just knew most teachers didn't appreciate it when he started trying to explain himself before they (usually unnecessarily) told him why they were annoyed with him. (Sometimes he honestly didn't know what he'd done wrong, but most of the time he did now. There were only so many ways to annoy teachers while not really doing anything, so.)

And if he was being perfectly honest, he was a bit wary of Professor Snape. Yes, he'd thought they'd gotten on passably well when he'd come to tell Harry about Hogwarts and Magical Britain, but Harry had been on his own ground then, and Snape had been off-balance from his argument with Aunt Petunia about whether she was abusing Harry (which was ridiculous, of course she wasn't) and Snape's father and those couple of good jabs she'd gotten in about him joining the Dark Lord like a bloody idiot. Here, though, Snape was clearly in charge, and Harry hadn't realised back at Aunt Petunia's house that he was probably one of the most powerful, cleverest wizards around. Maybe he should have, since he'd managed to make Harry lose his grip on the ambient magic so easily, but because he had done it so easily and hadn't mentioned it after, Harry had sort of thought it wasn't that big a deal. Like, he'd clearly taken the Ministry Goons by surprise, and maybe Madam Bones hadn't bothered because she was trying to be political and not make the hostage situation worse, but they could have done the same thing? (Apparently not.)

He also hadn't realised before spending a couple of weeks hanging out around Knockturn exactly what it meant that Snape had been a Death Eater. Every single Marked Death Eater had killed someone to earn their Mark — a skull and viper tattoo on their left forearm. Murdered someone, in cold blood. And they'd all fought against the Ministry and various vigilante groups trying to stop them. Anyone who couldn't hold their own in a full-scale battle hadn't made it through the War. The slightly drunk warlock who'd told Harry that, talking about the duelling Competition and how none of those kids with their silly game and its rules knew a damn thing about really fighting, said all of the Death Eaters were trained as well as the Hit Wizards — Magical Britain's main government security force, not quite soldiers but not really just cops — and a lot of them as well as the Aurors, who were considered the most elite fighters in Britain — basically magical SWAT, as well as detectives. And Snape in particular had been a spy, a double agent, and managed to talk his way out of even a couple of years in prison after the war without claiming he'd been mind-controlled into it, like Theo's father and the Malfoys — and, as the boys had told him on the train, he was the person other very clever professionals turned to to solve problems that had them stumped, with a degree of ruthless efficiency that was apparently sort of legendary.

If there was one person in the school whose bad side Harry suspected he didn't want to see, it was Snape. The Headmaster might be more powerful, both magically and politically, but everything about the way he'd led his side of the war suggested he didn't really have the will to use his power, and he might be a genius alchemist — Mistle, the Knockturn tattooist who had been Harry's downstairs neighbour, had said as much, telling him about dragon's blood tattoos (which wasn't one of the Twelve Uses of Dragon's Blood Dumbledore and Flamel had published on, but probably more awesome than any of them) — but that didn't mean he was particularly good at solving problems or ferreting out plots against him or matching wits against someone who really wanted to defy his authority. Snape was the Head of Slytherin House. That was basically the entire job description.

Harry wouldn't really say he was afraid of Snape, but he knew the Potions Master was brilliant, calculating, cunning, ruthless, and willing to kill if necessary. Not that he thought the professor would kill him, but most people, as Harry was now aware, considered killing so much as a cat to be an inherently heinous act, so he couldn't imagine there were lesser punishments or manipulative pressures the former Death Eater would refrain from using, if he was willing to kill when he had to. Harry would have to be an idiot not to at least have enough wariness of him to be polite.

Accordingly, when Snape held out a hand and said, "Hand it over. Whatever book you found so much more engaging than my lecture," Harry dug it out of his bag without complaint. Or tried to, at least. Where the hell had it gone? He'd had it just a moment ago...

He did have to say, though, "It's not that your lectures aren't engaging, sir—" His welcome speech in their first lesson had been positively riveting. "—just the topic."

"Why am I not surprised that you, of all children, have no regard for safety protocols, Mister Potter?" the man sneered.

Probably because Sirius Black had no regard for safety protocols. Which wasn't necessarily a good point, since Harry apparently wasn't his son, and even if he were it wasn't as though Black had raised him, but on the other hand, given what he knew about the Blacks in general, it was entirely possible that the "pathological disregard for our own safety" which Danny had mentioned was not great enough to make scaling the walls of the Castle seem like a good idea to him, was both literal and genetic, and Bellatrix almost certainly was his mother. (Danny wasn't actually a Black either, and all appearances aside James Potter had really been very distantly related to Sirius and Bellatrix, so perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that he'd missed out on it.)

Harry left off digging through his bookbag to pout at him. "I have regard for safety protocols! I'm not going to do anything that might be dangerous to other students on purpose."

Despite Blaise's assurances about magical children being generally a bit more durable than non-magical children, Harry wasn't entirely convinced that, say, Sally Perks, would be able to walk away from an accident the same way he would, if only because most people (as evidenced by their first lesson) had a tendency to panic when something went wrong, and that almost always made things worse. (As evidenced by Perks and Malone having to go to the Hospital Wing after trying to mop up their mess with their bare hands, rather than take a couple of steps back and let it drip onto the floor to be cleaned up later, at the very least by someone with gloves.) And Harry was very accustomed to being careful around other children.

Snape, for some reason, seemed surprised about that. Harry didn't question it — he wasn't sure he was allowed to, or whether that would be considered back-talk. He just resumed digging through his bag. How the hell had his novel managed to get all the way to the bottom in the time it took to walk across the room? "Just, I'm not an idiot, everything you were going on about specifically logically followed on avoiding contamination by extraneous magic or other ingredients and being aware that we're doing something potentially dangerous, messing around with ingredients that might be explosive or poisonous in the wrong combinations, and also don't interrupt other people's rituals, because all sorts of horrible shite could happen, right?"

Ha! Found it! Snape raised an eyebrow as Harry handed over the book, though he wasn't even looking at it. "I didn't mention that brewing a potion is ritual magic."

Hadn't he? It very obviously was. The specific proportion of different ingredients could be some sort of magical chemistry thing (alchemy? Harry still wasn't sure what the difference between Potions and Alchemy was...), like baking, but ingredients having to be gathered in a certain way or at certain times and the different stirring patterns used to combine them were obviously ritual-y. And besides, "You mentioned not to interrupt other people's brewing, and that we needed to maintain 'so serious a demeanour as undisciplined children such as yourselves are capable of maintaining, and refrain from excessive chatter, remaining attentive and keeping your minds focused on your work', and you definitely talk about the lab like it's a ritual space — 'I won't have you profaning this classroom with frivolity or extraneous magics'— I wasn't completely ignoring the lesson!"

Snape's expression remained absolutely inscrutable. "You do realise that it is perhaps inadvisable to tell a professor that you have been even partially ignoring them."

"You already know I was reading under the table," Harry pointed out. "So I'm really telling you I was partially paying attention." Really, this was one of those half-glass of water things — in this case one that should be considered half-full, since it had been empty. Seeing that the professor still didn't react, Harry decided to press his luck. "Look, I'm sorry, sir. If you don't want me to read in class, I won't. It's just, I get bored easily. My teachers at my old school preferred I read at the back of the room rather than do anything that might be distracting to anyone else while they explained really obvious, boring things for all the idiots in the class."

Snape's eyes tipped toward the ceiling as though he was trying very hard not to look amused or like he sympathised with that attitude, which Harry would bet good money he did. If he was half as clever as he seemed, he'd probably been bored to tears in lessons when he was Harry's age. He'd called them all dunderheads in his welcome speech himself! Harry waited patiently while the professor considered his response.

After a long moment, he sighed. "I suppose that is likely the least disruptive approach to managing your presence in this class. I won't have you reading entertaining drivel back there during lectures — if you think the other students will not notice your lack of attention and consider it favouritism, all the more so reading trash like this—" He sneered at the novel in his hand as though Whitney had personally offended him. "—you are sorely mistaken — but if you would rather read something topical while I expound on the tedious, 'obvious' details of the concepts we will be covering in lectures for the dunderheads who compose the majority of your peers, I suppose I cannot reasonably object. I will," he added quickly, "periodically ask you questions to ensure that you do pay some attention to the concepts in question, and if I find your participation and engagement to be lacking, that will be the end of this arrangement. Understood?" He gave Harry a narrow-eyed, challenging glare which left no question that objecting would be a fantastically bad idea.

Harry nodded, trying not to grin. "Yes, sir. Do you have any suggestions of 'topical' books that would be more acceptable?"

Snape, yet again, looked slightly surprised. One of these days (probably next term, after they knew each other a bit better and he wasn't concerned that the professor might decide the question was grossly impertinent) Harry was going to ask why the heck it was so surprising when Harry was just...polite. Not even extra polite, just...normal, run-of-the-mill polite. "On Craft-Magicks, perhaps," he suggested, handing Harry's book back, "or Grey's Guide to Magical Creatures." He scribbled a note on a scrap of paper. His penmanship was atrocious — not that Harry could talk, he could barely read his own writing with a quill — so it wasn't until the professor flicked it across the desk with a little pulse of wandless magic that he could make out: Let Potter check out Grey's. It was signed with an ornate 'S'. "Give that to Madam Pince."

"Wait, what? This isn't a Restricted book, is it?"

"There are enough pictures I imagine you'll be able to follow it, but if you find it too advanced you needn't keep it," the professor said, a raised eyebrow and the tiniest of smirks making it clear that his dry, mocking tone was a joke. It was a very Slytherin expression — Harry had only been here half a week, and he already recognised it from Theo and Blaise.

"Um. Thanks," he said, somewhat taken aback.

This time the professor very clearly rolled his eyes. "The Headmaster, in his infinite wisdom, considers some of the illustrations unsuitable for the eyes of innocent underclassmen such as yourself," he explained, sarcasm positively dripping from the phrase "innocent underclassmen". "As such, if you are inspired to begin dissecting animals for your own edification, you would be well advised to do so out in the Forest with all the other little monsters, lest I inform my colleagues you cannot be trusted with such knowledge."

Translation: I can be a very good friend, or a very bad enemy. Don't make me regret this. Also, maybe slightly oddly, I don't care if you kill things, I care if you get caught and people blame me for giving you ideas.

This time, Harry didn't even try not to grin. "Understood, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Don't mention it, Potter. Ever."

Translation: You're welcome, Potter. Now go away, I'm a busy man and just because I did something nice for you doesn't mean I like you.

Harry went.