Switched

If Snape was Harry's favourite professor, McGonagall was his least favourite. He wasn't really a fan of Flitwick, either, mostly because he insisted on enthusiastically drawing attention to whatever 'advanced' thing Harry was doing to entertain himself while everyone else took forever figuring out how to light a bloody candle, or whatever. Harry really didn't appreciate being made to be the centre of attention, especially since everyone watching him instead of figuring out the most basic of charms meant they would take even longer to get to the next spell.

Quirrell stuttered, which made his lectures almost physically painful to sit through — Harry couldn't even read under his desk with that going on in the background — and...it was sort of hard to explain, really, but Harry got the impression that their Defence Professor was...not necessarily completely harmless, but like some sort of scared, injured animal that would only fight back when cornered, and then probably ineffectively, because he very clearly didn't know how to go for the throat any more than Danny (or, to be fair, most of Harry's yearmates) and didn't have the balls to really try even if he did know how to hurt someone. He was about the last professor Harry thought should be teaching Defence. Only Binns, the History Ghost, would be worse.

But McGonagall never warmed to Harry after their first meeting, and unlike Snape, who was cold and sharp but at least sympathetic to the fact that Harry was so freaking bored, or Quirrell, whose lectures were probably not intended to be torturous, he was pretty sure she had been trying to drive him insane the first couple of weeks. Not only would she not let him read at the back of the classroom — which was far less distracting to his peers than insisting he participate, he made sure of it, asking questions about the differences between witchcraft and wizardry that had been pointed out in the theory book Snape had recommended, which he knew would take half the lesson to answer — but she took points when she caught him working ahead or using techniques that he'd found reading outside of class. She'd about blown a bloody gasket when he decided to try deconstructing the little transformations they were practising in class. Which was bloody stupid, Harry wasn't hurting anyone trying to work out how the matchstick-to-needle transformation spell was related to the basic wand movements in the appendix of their textbook.

-v-

(Thurs 12 Sept)

"Mister Potter, what on earth do you think you're doing?!"

Harry startled rather badly, focused as he was on his transfiguration. The magic unravelled immediately, his half-transformed needle instantly reverting to a matchstick with a little foof as the energy dispersed, ripples quickly fading back into the ambient magic. "Transfiguring my matchstick, ma'am?"

"How many times must I tell you, Mister Potter!" the professor snapped, swooping down on him. "I will not stand for any fooling around or reckless experimentation in my classroom! Five points from Ravenclaw!"

Harry glared up at her, now seriously annoyed, and completely unconcerned about the fact that literally everyone else in the classroom was staring at them. "I'm not being reckless! We've been doing the same bloody thing, in every single lesson since the beginning of the year! It's been two weeks!"

"Another five points for cheek, Mister Potter! And we will continue to work on this concept until everyone in the class has mastered it!"

"Good! Fine! Let them work on it, then! I've got it down! How many bloody needles do I need to make to prove it to you?!"

The professor's nostrils flared, her lips thinning into a tightly compressed line as she leaned in, looming over him. She really didn't like her authority and teaching methods questioned, but Harry really didn't care. He stood to make her take a step back, though if anyone asked it was because he was just trying to be respectful, standing when he was addressed by a figure of authority.

"Unlike some professors, Mister Potter, I do not condone special treatment for one child over another!" That was a bloody lie. It had only been two weeks — this was their second Thursday of lessons — and the entire first-year class already knew who the professors' favourites were. McGonagall in particular favoured all of her Gryffindors over practically everyone else, and especially Hermione Granger, the muggleborn girl who taken such a complete and instant dislike of Harry in Ollivander's shop.

"Then stop holding the rest of us back on Weasley and Longbottom's behalf, and stop picking on me! I'm not the only one who's dying of boredom! Patil and Brown over there have been talking about cosmetic charms for two lessons now! Li, Corner, and Entwhistle have been reading under their desks and you haven't yelled at any of them! Danny's been conjuring matchsticks for us to transfigure because we ran out twenty minutes ago!" He pointed at the pile of transfigured needles he and his roommate had produced before Harry decided to try his hand at deconstructing the spell they were supposed to be working on — there had to be over two hundred, they'd spent the first fifteen minutes of the lesson (after being briefly informed that they were still practising this stupid spell) having a quiet series of contests to see who could do the transformation faster, make the most needles in a minute. (Danny had won five out of seven, but he'd been doing transfiguration for years.)

Harry, on the other hand, was not allowed to read under the table or work ahead or, apparently, try to work out how the Basic Wand Movements in the appendix of their textbook that the professor had said they needn't bother with came together to form the spell they were actually supposed to be working on.

"Detention, Mister Potter!"

"Fine! Give me detention! I don't care! Just tell me what the hell I'm supposed to do while I wait for everyone else to catch up, if I'm not allowed to do anything not related to the lesson or things that are related to the lesson, why am I even here?! Clearly not to actually learn anything!"

"If you are bored, Mister Potter, I expect you to help your neighbours figure out the day's lesson, like Miss Granger! Not disrupt the class with tangential questions or ignore the lesson entirely, or experiment with dangerous exercises like spell deconstruction and more complex transformations you are not yet prepared to attempt!"

No mention of the inconsistency of not yelling at half the bloody class for the exact same things she was yelling at Harry over, he noted. And he would like to make the argument that if he could do a more complex transformation he clearly was prepared to attempt it, but he was more struck by the audacity of suggesting that he should "help his neighbours" "like Miss Granger" — honestly?! Everyone around him had already worked it out for one thing — did she expect all of them to crowd around Weasley and Longbottom trying to 'help' them? They didn't even want Granger's help!

Secondly, Harry might not be the best with people, but even he knew that other kids didn't like him rubbing it in their faces that he was better than they were. Granger, with her overly-pushy 'helpfulness' and her annoyingly bossy attitude, had already become the least popular person in their year doing that sort of shite.

And she said it like he was a rude, self-centred jerk for not realising this himself, despite the fact that, "Isn't helping my neighbours figure out the day's lesson your job, Professor?"

The professor's lips thinned even further, which Harry hadn't thought possible, glaring down her nose at him. "Keep up this attitude with me, young man, and I will have you removed from this classroom!"

Harry blinked. Well...okay, then? He knew that kicking him out was supposed to be a negative consequence, but he sort of thought it should be obvious that he had no interest in being here, so...it really wasn't? He honestly didn't care if he failed the course just because he'd been kicked out — it wasn't like he was learning anything here anyway, and what was she going to do? refuse to advance him at the end of the year, thereby forcing them to go through this all again next year? Sprout had all but told them in their first lesson that the only marks that really mattered were OWLs and NEWTs (but they should consider their marks in class and on the end-of-term exams as they progressed through their Hogwarts careers to be a sort of gauge of how well they were likely to do on the big, important exams), so as far as Harry was concerned, McGonagall really had no power over him to speak of. Hell, she could get him expelled if she wanted to, he'd just go back to living in Charing. It wasn't like he didn't have money to live on, now that he had his bloody bank key — no thanks to her...

His lips twitched into an involuntary smirk in expectation of her reaction to his response, even as he flipped his textbook closed and snatched up his bag.

"You wipe that smirk off your face, young man! And where precisely do you think you're going?"

The smirk only grew broader as he turned on his heel and explained over his shoulder, "It was my understanding I'm not welcome in your classroom, Professor, so I think I'm going literally anywhere else." There was still an hour and a half before dinner, so probably back to his room. He couldn't practise magic in the Library, and doing so in the Commons only earned him more odd looks.

He firmly and deliberately shut the door behind himself rather than giving it a careless slam, mostly just to have an excuse to turn around and see the absolutely shocked expression of pure outrage on her face.

He was still grinning when Danny caught up with him two minutes later, giggling nervously. "Mum's going to be furious. But she started laying into me for conjuring shite as soon as you left, so. Solidarity, right?"

-ʌ-

Harry couldn't exactly refuse to help people after McGonagall said he should in front of the entire class, because it would look like he thought himself too good to help them or something, but he didn't want to be that smug arsehole pouncing on the nearest person who was slower than himself and critiquing everything about their casting with a smug bossiness to rival a fifth-year prefect. (Miss Clearwater hadn't warmed to Harry either, after he'd decided to find the Common Room without her help and dragged Danny along with him.) He'd compromised by helping anyone who actually asked for his help, which wasn't many of them, because Granger seemed to think she was winning some sort of contest by barging in and 'helping' them before Harry or Danny could offer.

Danny was actually better at Transfiguration than Harry or Granger, because Nymphadora was apparently a shapeshifter (that was why Blaise called them Doriel, sometimes she was a girl and sometimes he was a boy), and had been teaching Danny transfiguration since he was eight (because she was the single most awesome person Harry had ever even almost met in real life — he was so making Danny introduce him over Christmas or something). His mother had sent him something called a howler — a letter that shouted at the intended recipient and then burst into flame — telling him that no matter how stubborn a bitch Minerva McGonagall might be about holding students back from reaching their full potential, the Board hadn't yet seen fit to demand her job for it, so Madam Tonks still expected him to attend every one of her completely pointless lessons, and he knew better than to follow Dora's example in telling his professors to piss off, she'd raised him to have more respect for his elders, regardless of whether they'd actually earned or deserved his respect, what the hell was he thinking, if she got another letter from that straight-laced twat before the end of the month, she'd be marching right up to Hogwarts and they'd be having an altogether more pointed version of this conversation in person, so he'd damn well better be in his Transfiguration lesson on Wednesday, or else.

Harry had gone back to class on Wednesday too, in solidarity. Also because Madam Tonks actually used the phrases "stubborn bitch" and "straight-laced twat" to describe the professor, and Danny said she knew the letter would be screaming at him in the Great Hall at breakfast, so it was at least equally directed at McGonagall, intended to embarrass her probably more than Danny. He assured Harry that if McGonagall didn't shape up, she'd be having a Very Pointed Conversation with his mum, too — they had a longstanding enmity, going back to Dora's first year at Hogwarts.

Danny's "mum", though not quite as insane as her notorious older sister, was apparently also a very scary lady — Very Pointed Conversation almost certainly meant threatening to have McGonagall sacked, and possibly blackmail. Not that Danny actually knew whether his mum had some sort of blackmail material on the professor, but he wouldn't be surprised. And it was really seven or eight members of the Board of Governors she'd have to pressure into threatening to replace Dumbledore if he didn't find a new Transfiguration Mistress, anyway. Honestly, more like two or three — about half the Board already wanted to get rid of him. Technically, Danny sort of thought she'd already threatened to have McGonagall sacked, but she'd probably give the Transfiguration professor one more chance, just in case she hadn't caught it.

Harry was pretty sure she had, though. She had let them sit at the back of the classroom and do whatever the hell they liked after that, sending them the occasional poisonous glare, but otherwise ignoring them as much as possible, not even calling on them to answer questions. (Though, that might have been because Granger, her favourite, always practically jumped out of her seat, waving her hand in the air to answer before anyone else.)

As for the other professors, Binns the History Ghost was...a ghost, and didn't seem to notice or care whether his students were paying attention to his droning lectures at all. Most people used his lessons as a study-hall. Double History was the only class the first-year Ravenclaws had on Fridays, so basically they had the whole day free.

And Sprout... Sprout adored him — apparently vanishingly few first-year wizards had ever so much as weeded a garden before, let alone knew how to tease apart the root ball of a plant to be re-potted — but Harry found her unnervingly...squishy. Sort of mumsy, but in a Molly Weasley way that made him want to avoid her, rather than a Firebloom way that made him want to ask her for advice on anything outside of lessons. Or in lessons, for that matter.

-v-

(Mon 16 Sept)

"I hope you don't mind me asking," Professor Sprout said delicately, puttering over to the table where Harry was the last student left, taking the time to clean up his bench and wipe off his trowel before chucking it back into the bucket. The trowels they'd been using to re-pot various herbs today were probably enchanted not to rust, but it was force of habit, honestly. Aunt Petunia would go spare if she caught him not taking care of her tools like pretty much everyone else in his class. Well, everyone except Blaise's friend Daphne. The Slytherin girl everyone was already calling an ice princess behind her back pretty obviously hated getting messy and went out of her way to make sure everything was neat and tidy when she left, too — she was a couple of tables away, packing up her own things. "But...are you quite well, Mister Potter?"

"Ah...yes? Why?"

The short, plump witch hemmed and hawed for a few moments, obviously not certain whether she wanted to say, "Well, that is, it's just...I can't help noticing, certain things about your demeanour... Is everything quite well at home, dear?"

Harry blinked at her, completely lost. "I expect so. My cousin's off at school, too. I don't imagine Aunt Petunia's having trouble taking care of just herself and Uncle Vernon..." He was fairly certain he was missing something, here, because he had no idea what whatever was going on at home might have to do with his "demeanour", but he couldn't imagine what. "Er...I hope you don't mind me asking, but what exactly are we talking about?"

"Oh, well, that is... It's just... You know you can come talk to me any time, about anything. My door's always open to everyone, not just Hufflepuffs."

"O...kay?" He was aware that the professors had office hours. "Is there, I don't know, something you think I need help with? Because if I've been doing something wrong, I don't know what it is, so...I can't really ask about it, if you see what I mean..."

"Oh, no! No, no, no, my dear!" she exclaimed, taking his hand and patting it, which...was odd. "Your performance has been absolutely exemplary! If half my students were as careful and thorough as you, well! No, you haven't done anything wrong, not at all!"

"Um. Okay, then?" He tried to pull his hand away from her without making it too obvious that he found this whole conversation just...weird. Weird and uncomfortable. "I'm...going to just...go, then?"

She still looked unmistakably troubled, but she didn't try to stop him shouldering his bag and getting the hell out of there.

Daphne was outside waiting for him to walk her to Charms, as she had every time they were the last two out of the greenhouse. Ravenclaw had that one next too, and she seemed more comfortable around him than most people in his year, so he didn't mind walking with her rather than walking to the same place at the same time, but separately, with both of them ignoring each other and the fact that they were doing exactly that.

"Come on," he muttered, catching up. "Let's go." When they were safely out of ear-shot of the greenhouses, he added, "That was weird, right? The way Sprout was acting. It's not just me?"

Daphne tittered. "Well, no, it's not just you, but also not weird. She probably thinks you're too quiet and careful because you get in trouble at home if you're not."

"Well, she's not wrong, but still. What the hell was that about? I mean, I'm not more quiet and careful than you or Theo or Bulstrode. Crabbe. Goyle. Davis. Even Blaise, a lot of the time. And what business is it of hers, anyway, what my homelife is like?"

"Mmm..." She took a few seconds to consider, as though she wasn't sure she wanted to tell him, but eventually she did. "It's not really a secret that Theo's, Tracey's, and Millie's families are deliberately cruel to them. Gregory has some issue or other with his elder brother — Vincent and Draco know, but they won't say what. Blaise says I overcompensate for my family's reputation, trying too hard to play the young lady — though I'd rather be considered an ice princess than a jumped-up mistwalker pretending to be nobility. And he awakened as a legilimens really early — if there's one thing that will make you grow up quickly, it's got to be knowing what all the adults around you are thinking. Plus his relationship with Mira is in no way normal.

"Which isn't to say that your family are particularly cruel or treat you badly — Vincent's parents are very strict, but he's also just a quiet boy, I think, and it's hardly my parents' fault that the family holds the position we do, or that I'm probably going to be Lady Greengrass and need to learn to act the part — but I'm sure you couldn't say just watching us in lessons whether my father is as cruel to me as Theo's is to him. And some adults have this crazy notion that if a child is caught in a home where they're being tortured in the name of 'raising them properly', maybe someone ought to do something about that."

Harry scowled at the ground in front of them. "I shouldn't have to justify the way Aunt Petunia raised me just because some people are bloody nosey." Not that he thought he couldn't, but he didn't really like cluing in people who weren't already aware to the fact that he was a crazy freak. And that was sort of necessary to explain why Aunt Petunia felt it was necessary to make rules for him that didn't really apply to anyone else — not because she was trying to be particularly cruel to him, just because Dudley wouldn't think it was a good idea to kill a cat or push another child into traffic, or even make pie in the middle of the night (and not using the oven without supervision had applied to him too, anyway), and he wasn't magic, so obviously he couldn't do magic that might bring Flo and Friends popping out of nowhere to mess with their memories. "If I thought something needed to be done about it, I'd do it myself. And I don't see her being all weird at any of you."

Daphne gave him a very practised smile, which could mean anything, but more likely meant nothing at all. "No, but we're Slytherins. Professor Snape makes a point of doing that sort of thing himself. Everyone knows McGonagall and Flitwick are terrible Heads of House. My guess would be she's just trying to make sure you don't fall through the cracks, as it were. She's just concerned about you, that's all."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm so glad I'm not a Hufflepuff..."

-ʌ-

Aurora Sinistra, on the other hand, was great. She was tied as his favourite professor with Snape. He didn't find her subject nearly as interesting — so far Astronomy had just been a lot of star-gazing, trying to identify constellations and planets and discussing the shape of the solar system, for all the kids in Harry's year who neither knew nor cared whether the earth went around the sun or the other way around, or why the moon had phases. But she was snarky and a good speaker and told them the stories behind the constellations while they were trying to pick them out of the random expanse of sparks in the night sky — and when she caught him exploring the Castle in the middle of the night the second week of term, she'd invited him to join her for tea rather than giving him detention.

-v-

(Fri 13 Sept)

Shite!

Harry ducked into a stairwell he hadn't intended to take as he heard the fake farting sounds of the school poltergeist coming from around the next corner. It didn't really matter who or what was waiting on the other side of the tapestry of Saint Bridget, unless it was Filch himself. The ghosts barely noticed where they were most of the time, let alone what time it was (sometime well after two in the morning, Harry was actually considering going back to the Tower soon), and there was something uncanny about Missus Norris, the caretaker's cat — not unlike the not-cat Harry had killed in Little Whinging — but Harry could easily get far enough away while she was running to Filch that they'd never be able to find him.

Of course, he hadn't expected there to be an actual professor on the other side of the tapestry. Luckily, it was an up staircase, because if he'd run into Professor Sinistra like that going down, they probably wouldn't have stopped tumbling until they hit the next landing. As it was, the Astronomy professor only let out a startled eep and sat down very quickly and not entirely purposefully on the stairs behind herself. Harry fell on top of her, hitting his funny bone on something in an effort to avoid putting his hands (or his face) somewhere unfortunate. Which, when falling all over one's pretty young Astronomy professor in a secluded stairwell, was pretty much anywhere.

"Sorry! Sorry!" he exclaimed, pushing himself back to his feet and taking two quick steps back. "Ah. Good morning, Professor."

"Potter?! What the fuck are you doing?! Running around down here at half past two, tackling people on the bloody stairs! You almost gave me a heart attack, you little shite!"

Harry started giggling uncontrollably at the professor's irate swearing — if he'd had to guess which professor was most likely to call him a little shite (to his face), Sinistra would not have been at the top of the list — which was probably not the best response. He bit his lip trying to stop, but that little glare she pinned him with was just too funny. Like she was trying to look like McGonagall, but she was about forty years too young. Also, shorter than him, since she was still sitting on the stairs. "Sorry!" he repeated. "I was— Well, I was trying to avoid Peeves. I didn't expect anyone to be in here."

"That much," the witch said firmly, attempting to recover some degree of dignity, "was obvious. Why the hell are you even out here? Aren't you supposed to be locked up in a tower somewhere?" Like a fairy-tale princess? Harry bit his lip to stop himself losing what composure he'd managed to regain. "Curfew was about four hours ago, you know!"

"Ah, yes. Yes, I'm aware. That's why I was trying to avoid Peeves. He likes trying to get students caught out of bed. I didn't want him to go find a professor and..." He sighed, realising that he was currently talking to a professor. "I'm going to get a detention, aren't I?" He'd managed to avoid official disciplinary action for almost two whole weeks, which was probably a record, at least in recent years — he couldn't remember the last time he'd gone more than a week without being sent to the Headmaster's or Counselor's office at Little Whinging Primary at least once — but that didn't mean he wanted a(nother) detention. (He supposed he had broken his streak earlier, in Transfiguration, but he was inclined to say that detentions for things he had absolutely no control over weren't actually his fault, and didn't count.)

"What? No, of course not." She sniffed, pushing herself back to her feet. "I don't give detentions for breaking curfew, the entire concept is asinine. I do want to know what the hell you're doing down here, though. You know, since anyone else would give you a detention."

Oh. Okay, then...

Harry shrugged. "Exploring? I wasn't tired or in the mood to just sit around the Commons reading or playing the piano or practising spells." He'd needed to do something new. Something active. If it weren't raining, he might've tried exploring the roofs, or working his way down to the Dinky Third-Floor Courtyard from his bedroom window, but the slate tiles would be slick and there wasn't really enough light, even for Harry. So he'd just been sneaking around inside, looking for hidden passages and cool statues for the past hour and a half or so — he'd waited until it was long enough after curfew the prefects had stopped patrolling, trying to enforce the most annoying rule. "The chance of spending an hour being bored later in detention if I get caught isn't really enough incentive to definitely spend an hour being bored now."

The professor snorted, trying not to laugh, even though Harry wasn't really trying to be funny, there. "Septima's going to love you when you get to Arithmancy. Come on." She brushed past him, flicking the tapestry out of the way.

"Er...where are we going?" Harry asked, following her back out into the corridor he'd so abruptly fled only minutes ago. Peeves and his farting noises were nowhere to be seen (or heard).

"Well, I was going down to the kitchens for lunch. I presume you have nowhere in particular to be, so you're going to come have a cup of tea and keep me company. Small talk, you know — tell me how you're liking Hogwarts and how the hell you know how to speak House Elf. Whatever comes to mind. This way." She turned left, leading Harry down a corridor he'd never noticed before. "I note you didn't deny speaking House Elf, which I suppose means I owe Severus a galleon. Bugger. I could have sworn Filius was having us on..."

-ʌ-

She was the youngest of the professors, and probably the only one he'd want to talk to about how he was finding the magical world so far. She'd mentioned she was muggle-raised herself and, unlike most of the other adult mages he'd met, didn't seem to think that ignoring all the things people said about how magic was supposed to work was a bad idea. She also thought the concept of curfew was, in her words, pointless aside from giving professors an arbitrary excuse to exercise their equally arbitrary 'authority', and the idea of trying to force the students to keep a regular sleep schedule while also expecting them to attend lessons at midnight once a week was asinine. Harry thought she was bored, being the only (other) (living) person in the Castle awake at two in the morning. She had mentioned that Snape was usually up late too, but he was almost always busy and kind of a git, so not great company. Harry was pretty sure he would never get over a professor acting like a real person, calling other professors gits and talking about betting on whether rumours about students were true.