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Harry was sleep deprived.
Reclined in the common room far past curfew, he could feel his eyes fight to close against the dwindling light of the fire. His feet were propped comfortably against the coffee table, adding to the lethargy slowly but surely overtaking him. The comfortable back of the cushy chair allowed him to slowly sink until he felt as though he was leaving a permanent Harry shaped impression in the chair.
He knew it was his own fault he was tired; the numerous Defense books he had borrowed freely from the library behind Hermione’s back were a testament to that fact.
(Was it his fault if he felt the overwhelming urge to ensure that none of the DA were wasting their time with him? They were going behind Umbridge’s back, a dangerous place to be, in order to learn from him. He had to prepare them properly, make the wasted afternoons and late nights worth it).
However, as he looked tiredly at the pitch black sky through the tower windows, he decided he could give himself a break for the night and call it good.
Harry sat up tiredly, stretching his back, and lazily called out, “5 points to Gryffindor, for dedication to the cause.”
Harry was not an idiot.
Professor Snape would probably disagree, Hermione would urge him to think more highly of himself, and Ron would just shrug and say that Harry wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but made up for it with his flying ability. Whatever the case, Harry knew that he wasn’t entirely unintelligent.
But as he looked upon the hourglass of crimson Gryffindor points, he felt extremely confused.
Harry distinctly remembered Seamus gleefully reporting the number of points that Gryffindor had held at sunset the day before. (“1,326,” Seamus had crowed. “400 more than the bloody Snakes.”)
Now, Harry was no mathematician, but the number proudly displayed above the Gryffindor hourglass was not 1326, but rather a slightly higher 1331. About five points higher than the night before.
How? How was it possible? What could have happened the previous night, past curfew, that warranted an increase in points? Especially to Gryffindor house, which was admittedly not known for its good deeds past sunset.
Could it have been. . .?
No, that’s ridiculous. Harry’s not a professor, so it’s impossible for him to have given points.
. . . right?
Yes, it’s impossible. Anyone could have just awarded the points for something that had happened in the morning; no matter that it was before seven. It made much more sense for one of the professors to have gotten up early, especially given their more erratic behaviour as of late.
Harry’s not a professor.
Harry was concerned.
It seemed that every time the DA met, Ron and Hermione were on edge. Constantly glancing around and at each other, he didn’t know whether to be relieved that they were communicating or worried that they were planning something. The fact that they refused to so much as fill him in on what was making them so nervous just made him more nervous.
The others weren’t much better.
Fred and George seemed committed to making sure that he was never alone in the presence of a teacher. Seamus and Dean did their best to drag him away from the hourglass of class points every meal. Angelina kept striking up a random conversation about Quidditch every time Madam Hooch so much as came onto the field. Even Neville distracted Professor Sprout with talk of Herbology the one time she wanted to talk to him after class.
He didn’t understand what they had against the teachers conversing with him. It wasn’t like they were out to get him. They just wanted to teach! Yes, fine, they were being a bit strange this year, but everyone had to be going mental if they thought he would hold that against them just because he’d been a bit on edge this year. If anything, he felt like they had a sense of solidarity. Umbridge was utter shite for everyone involved.
He didn’t try very hard to get them to talk after the first few tries.
“Homework advice! Nothing serious,” Ron said quickly, turning away as fast as he could.
“I’m trying to learn about Quidditch,” Hermione said blankly. Harry couldn’t force out the words to ask whether she thought that was less suspicious than saying nothing at all.
“Well, after all the professors going after you all these years, we figured it was time to do something about it!” Fred said brightly, by far the most convincing.
“Preventative action,” George agreed, before physically turning Harry around when Professor Flitwick walked past them.
All in all, Harry was well aware none of them were telling the truth.
He laid it to rest for a good while, letting them continue being squirrely and strange, because now so much of his time was occupied. Where he’d been forced to put his spare time into preparing for Tournament Trials last year, now he was back in the same place, retracing his steps.
There was a chance that they went overboard last year, the three of them. Hermione’s fear of Harry dying, combined with Ron’s fear of Harry dying and Harry’s own fear of Harry dying, meant that outside of class, Quidditch, and personal drama, they did an unreasonable amount of study and preparation. Harry thinks he could write a 16 inches off the top of his head on most topics in DADA, and probably 20 inches on some individual spells.
They’d stuffed his head with hexes, jinxes, counters, and more theory than he’d ever had to approach in his life. As someone who’d never truly excelled in school, it felt like a hopeless task. Yes, he could pull something together to save his life, but only ever then. Not when he needed to write an essay.
But they also discovered something strange.
Where Ron couldn’t grasp some of the theory they discovered, and Hermione couldn’t always wrap her head around the casting, it came easy to Harry. Everything they learned made sense to him, to the point where, at the forefront of the final task, Ron and Hermione would just tell him what they were reading about without even bothering to understand it themselves.
Even when told by people who didn’t understand what they were saying, it made sense to him. It was the only time in his life it had ever happened.
“You know, Harry?” Hermione huffed out, closing a copy of Defense for Mastery a few weeks before the final task. “I think your potential has been squandered at Hogwarts.”
“You don’t say,” Ron had laughed back, rolling up a scroll that had some diagrams of magical theory on it. “Merlin, it’s like he was born to be a Defense Master.”
“You’ve got to be overstating it,” Harry had argued, throwing a quill at them and launching a short lived battle that had him practicing Protego Maxima over and over again.
Nowadays, though, he didn’t think they were. He had more things stuffed in his head than ever, details of creatures and curses and dueling in addition to all the O.W.L. level courses he was taking, and they didn’t seem to be impeding him. More impressively, they didn’t seem to be leaving. They sat there comfortably behind ‘how to ride a broomstick’ and ‘how to walk from the Great Hall to Gryffindor Tower the fastest’.
So beyond a few probing questions, and throwing confused looks in DA meetings, Harry let his concern vanish. People kept showing up to meetings, the DA remained a secret, and Harry kept filling his head with everything that would keep him and his friends alive and kicking. He didn’t need to worry much beyond that.
He was going to die of laughter. All this time worrying about Voldemort, and he was going to go out with sore lungs because the universe, and more specifically Hogwarts, had done the funniest thing he’s ever heard of.
It was late in the evening, after Quidditch practice had ended and long after dinner was over. Despite feeling sore all over, Harry waved away everyone as they walked back to Gryffindor Tower and took the long way back.
He passed the Great Hall’s entrance, looking more cavernous while empty, the ceiling a deep black and speckled with stars. His head tilted up to watch a meteor going by.
A sliver of moonlight illuminated part of the teachers’ table, drawing his attention. More and more lately, he’d been thinking of himself up there. It felt so much better to help lead the DA than it did to bury himself in the library. He knew that fifth years eventually had to have career meetings with their heads of house, and it kept the idea in his head.
Maybe one day, he would take a seat up there. Professor Potter. It made him laugh to himself, thinking about the teasing nickname that the DA used being true.
“Five points from Gryffindor, for wishful thinking,” he said quietly, turning away to find his bed across the castle.
Instead, a tinkling sound echoed from the front of the room.
As if afraid of what he could find, Harry turned very slowly to eye the hourglasses. Had he …?
“Five points to Gryffindor, for a laugh,” he said slowly. This wasn’t possible, or even likely. C’mon, an actual professor had probably just been in a snit with a student or something. It’s not like-
Five points went to the hourglass right before his eyes.
Holy shit. He was a … he’d been made …
He was going to burst a lung with how much laughter filled that empty room. This was the best day of his life.
Things made a little more sense after that. There was a gleam in Lavender’s eye when she called him ‘Professor’. Seamus actually completed homework that Harry assigned him, pouting when Harry took points for roughhousing. Even the Slytherin’s gave him respect, which he’d always thought was kind of strange, but just assigned to him being crazy enough to pull something like the DA without the professors knowing.
Speaking of the professors . . .
It was difficult not to notice just how mad they were now that he had a different view of things. Running around the castle, whispering back and forth, seeking the end of a treasure hunt that he couldn’t figure out.
Until Colin Creevey spoke a little too loudly.
“I don’t know, they’re still looking really hard for the Professor,” he said worriedly to little Eleanor Branstone. She shushed him, raising an eyebrow in a way that was more cute than serious, because she was twelve, but the damage had been done. Harry didn’t let it show on his face, but another piece of the puzzle fell into place.
The professors knew. Likely about the DA, definitely about the secret professor affecting points, but not about Harry. His friends knew, that was clear. But the professors were losing their minds searching for a student hiding in plain sight.
Maybe he could tease them, just a little. He resigned to try after winter holidays ended.
Ok, so he did not have the time to tease them after winter holidays ended.
First, Dumbledore was gone. It disheartened him to hear about it, when Umbridge provided such a bullshit excuse, and he knew things would tighten up around Hogwarts.
“Dumbledore is now a fugitive from the law,” she announced with her sickeningly sweet voice. Harry caught Tracey Davis rolling her eyes at Daphne before Daphne elbowed her and they both pretended to look happy.
Of course, Quidditch being cancelled wasn’t ideal, but it meant more time for the DA, which he liked, so there was a small silver lining.
Then, Harry had to put energy into pretending to be concerned when Cho accidentally admitted that the professors were after them and everyone lied to his face by talking about copies of essays and students disappearing. Looking worried takes so much work!
Then Harry had to take Occlumency with Snape, which went horribly. Not because he was bad at Occlumency. It turns out once he got his hands on a textbook and a novel describing what it was like, he managed a decent shield. Snape hates him! Of course he would make it excessively difficult to learn Occlumency! It had Harry grinding his jaw to prevent taking points from Slytherin just to get back at the prick.
THEN the O.W.L.s were approaching and they had to pause meetings so everyone could study. He hardly had enough time to figure out how he was meant to write his Herbology essay, much less put a plan into action that involved teasing the professors and his friends.
Finally, the Ministry Incident. The less said, the better. (Not because it was excessively terrible, but for Harry’s sanity. There was simply too much to unpack).
But Dumbledore was back, and awarding the House Cup, and Harry desperately needed something pleasant to happen before he lost his mind thinking about prophecies things.
So he found McGonagall’s eyes, whispered to himself, and let himself relish in the look on her face as yellow points trickled downwards.
He can still have his fun.
Especially when the professors begin arguing about bets while a Hufflepuff rager begins.