"Hey Harry, what's that?"

"It's the new memory-sphere thing Lockhart and I came up with," said Harry, lifting the glass ball out of its container and frowning at it. Hedwig's ungainly crash landing into his breakfast did not break, it luckily, but some egg had seeped through the packaging and was still sticking to it, despite a less than vigorous wiping. "It's meant to be the first one of hopefully a large and profitable range of them."

"What's it do?"

"Well I just wanted to record somebody reading out our textbooks, so that I didn't have to actually do the reading. Smiley reckons he could get an actual lesson recorded and sell them. The deal was I'd get a free copy and few sickles for each one sold. This is meant to be on Divination, but I can't get it to work."

"What's the letter? Does it say how to work it?"

"Oh Smiley wrote something about finding a new marketing angle and some specialty suppliers or something, but he still managed to get a lesson recorded. I didn't bother reading it all the way through."

"Here let me have a look. Okay, hold it in your hand and push some magic through, saying the words 'Occulus revealeo'."

"Ah!" said Harry and the mist started swirling inside the previously clear ball. "I can see it now. Hear it too. That's really annoying music, sounds a bit like those old movies Vernon used to watch late at night-"

"Hey, Harry, Lockhart didn't write it's about divination, he wrote it's called Divine Action, and look at the names of these other 'courses': Ass-tronomy, Muggle Studs, Wrist-mancy – what the hell kind of course is this?"

"Um," said Harry, unblinking staring into the ball, his face going bright red.

"Oh. Oh! It's not school work, is it?"

"Well, it is, sort of, I mean she seems to be talking about that same stuff, but, er, well-."

"It's, er, a bit more interesting, isn't it?"

"Yep. Oh boy, yeah."

"You are going to share it, aren't you, mate? You know, to help us improve our grades."

"Maybe," answered Harry absently, his eyes not moving from the sphere. "Once, I've, er, studied it. Yeah, studied it. That's it… Er, I'll be in my bunk."

#

"Now, then," said Professor Lupin, beckoning the class toward the end of the room, where there was nothing but an old wardrobe the teachers kept their spare robes in. As he got close to it, the wardrobe gave a sudden wobble, banging off the wall.

"Nothing to worry about," said the Professor. "There's a Boggart in there. A Boggart is a shape shifter that takes the form it thinks will frighten you the most."

Lupin paused as a few of Harry's classmates sniggered.

"Ah, yes, you've probably already heard from the Gryffindors about Neville's Boggart eh? Good to see the Hogwarts rumour mill still exceeds the speed of magic. Now then, spread out and let's practice the spell."

"What happened?" Harry whispered to Susan as they began repeating the incantation and practicing the wand movements while the Professor continued his lecture.

"Apparently Neville is terrified of Professor Snape," said Susan.

"Understandable," agreed Harry, still not seeing the funny side.

"When you say the spell, it forces the Boggart to take the form you envision, so you are no longer scared of it," she giggled. "Professor Lupin had Neville imagine it dressed up in his grandmother's clothes."

"That's not funny," said Harry going pale. "It's horrible."

"Right then," called Lupin, apparently satisfied with their chaotic efforts. "Line up and we'll all have a go."

It took a moment for the usual pushing and shoving to resolve itself into a ragged line, and then each of them took a shot at facing their ultimate fear with Lupin putting it back inside the wardrobe between turns.

"On the count of three," said Professor Lupin as it came to Harry's turn. "One — two — three — now!"

The wardrobe burst open once again, but nothing immediate came out. Harry waited nervously as the class suddenly went silent in expectation.

The moment dragged on.

Then it dragged on some more.

It started getting ridiculous.

Finally Lupin took a step towards the wardrobe, his own wand raised readiness. Still nothing came out.

Harry tried to swallow, his throat feeling so dry he was no longer sure he could say the spell.

Lupin slowly walked all the way over to the empty door, then cautiously peered in.

"Hmm," he said, leaning inside and poking at something with his wand. "Er, well, yes. Okay then."

"Right, class," he said, standing back up and closing the door behind him. "It looks like this has all been a bit too much for our Boggart, so unfortunately that's the end of the lesson today."

Moans of disappointment and confusion greeted the Professor's announcement.

"Five points to each of you who faced the Boggart. For homework I want you all to read the chapter on Boggarts and summarise it for me," he said cheerfully. "Now, off you go."

Everybody piled out of the room talking excitedly, except Harry, who waited, watching Lupin reopen the cupboard to peer back inside.

"What happened?" asked Harry, his voice horse.

"Oh, Harry," said Lupin jumping back from the wardrobe. "I didn't see you there."

"What happened?" repeated Harry.

"Nothing to worry about," said Lupin, less than convincingly. "He just got a bit worn out I suspect."

Harry's sceptical look must have made the professor feel a bit guilty about his lie.

"Harry, do you know what your greatest fear is?" Lupin asked.

"No idea," said Harry, a million things running through his mind despite his ingrained habit of not thinking about things that didn't matter.

"I was rather worried it was going to be Voldemort," admitted Lupin, "Which would have been bad, especially for the rest of your classmates, but it seems whatever you fear is so bad it caused the Boggart to curl up and die."

Harry felt a knife of dread plunge into his heart and involuntarily took a step backwards.

"It's okay," reassured Lupin upon seeing Harry's stricken face. "I'm sure it was just confused facing so many different fears-"

"No," interrupted Harry, forcing himself to calm down. "It's not that. I know what happened."

"Really?" asked the Professor his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Yeah," said Harry quietly. "The effort of keeping his heart beating was too much, so he just let it stop."

"Oh, Harry," whispered Lupin. "You aren't really that lazy, you know. You try far too hard."

"Yeah, I know," said Harry. "That's why. That's not going to happen to me."

Lupin watched Harry carefully for a moment, both of them deep in thought.

"I guess not," the professor said suddenly, his raised voice startling Harry. "In fact, I think you are going to have to try this again, next week after class. I'll find another Boggart and we'll work on it until you can cast the spell with barely any effort at all.

Harry looked surprised, but then smiled.

"That would be horrible," he said.

"Excellent," said Lupin cheerfully. "I'll let you know exactly when once I find another Boggart, one that is a little less insightful this time. Now, off you go."

Harry nodded thankfully at the Professor and left the room, automatically heading for a shortcut that would let him catch up to his friends without having to hurry.

Behind him, Lupin poked thoughtfully at the dead Boggart with his wand.

#

"Great Harry Potters, sirs, we is being sorry sirs, but we are needing you," said the elf Harry was fairly certain had been called Tolly but was now referred to as "Brigadeary Major" or something. It was wearing a rather battered looking colander on his head that Harry really didn't want to think about, but couldn't help.

Harry had dropped by the kitchen on his way to the common rooms to snag a bite to eat and see if he could convince an elf to wash Hannah's clothes for a week so she would tell Sue's secret, but was quickly surrounded by elves.

"Well that's great because I need you guys too," said Harry, making a grab for a muffin sitting on an over-stacked tray on a side bench. "It's been hell around here without you. What have you been doing?"

"We's been fighting a wicked, clever enemy," answered the Brigadier Major of the Elf Retaliation and Control Army.

"What? But I left Voldemort pickled in a jar!" said Harry. "He hasn't escaped has he?"

The elves hissed as Harry said Voldemort.

"No, great Harry potter sirs," said the Brigadier. "He Who Must Not Be Named is still in Headmaster Dumbledore sir's office, on the Shelf No Elf Must Clean. Headmaster Dumbledore sirs takes him down and gives him a good shake every now and then. No, sirs, the enemy we fight messes up clean rooms, knocks things off shelfs, and eats anything left out."

"What, like students?" asked Harry through a mouthful of delicious chocolate muffin, ignoring the fact he really wanted to know why Beardy would shake the Dark Lord's prison, and of there was some way he could have a go.

"No!" exclaimed the elf, shocked that Harry could even suggest such a thing. "Studenties be good boys and girlses, learning important things, They's meant to be messy and clumsy, spilling juices, and leaving sticky nasty messes all over. No, these be evil things, nasty things not behaving the way they should be! They should be sitting on shelves quietly waiting for studenties to come opens them up and reads them, not rushing about, making messes and breeding like drunk elves. They be all kinds of wrong!"

"Er, sitting on shelves? Open them up and read them? You wouldn't be talking about books now would you?" asked Harry, trying valiantly to understand what was going on. "Because I don't particularly like books either, but calling them evil is stretching the dislike a bit far. Not even the stupid Hogwarts: a History is actually evil – at least I don't think it is, but since I've never read it-"

"These not be normal books!" yelled the elf. "These be books of death, with nasty, big, pointy teeth!"

It then put its hand in front of its mouth facing outwards, fingers curled to simulate what Harry supposed were meant to be terrifying teeth.

"Yes, well, thank you for the overly dramatic performance," said Harry politely, "but the only books I know of that have teeth are the Monster Book of Monsters, and you can put them to sleep pretty easily just by stroking the spine-"

"Strokes the spines?"

"Yes, just rub it. They go all quite and placid for ages. Can do what you like with them after that – mind you, could have saved a few people some nasty bruises and bites if we'd all been told earlier, especially poor Nev. His lost two uniforms to those buggers, and he was wearing one at the time! Lucky he had his steel chastity belt on I reckon, or it could have been really nasty!"

An excited murmur swept through the elves packed into the kitchen.

"Harry potter sir is the greatest wizard ever!" yelled an elf loudly, scaring Harry enough that he almost dropped the remains of his muffin. "He's has saved us! He be giving us the secrets to defeating the great scourge of the lower kitchens!"

"Saved us, again!" chorused all the elves in the kitchen, their cries spreading outward and turning into cheers and other outbursts of joy.

"If there's be anything we's can be doing for yous Harry Potter sir, you just be askings," said the original elf.

"Well actually," began Harry.

For a moment Harry felt a bit guilty, but it passed quickly; a product of long practice.

#

Twitchy struggled not to scratch at the itchiness of the black-dyed mop sitting awkwardly on his head. He had fought long and hard against many elves to earn the right to it, and he wasn't going to let the great Harry Potter sirs down by scratching like a monkey.

Besides, he was terribly interested in the old ghost hovering at the front of the class, and the last thing he wanted was to be noticed and possibly sent away.

"And although the Flame-Freezing Charm was particularly effective at negating any and all damage the Muggles tried to inflict with their bon-fires-" continued the Professor, "it became fairly obvious early on that a lack of planning often resulted in having their hands tied before being able to cast the spell and that would lead to rather unfortunate results."

Yes, all in all, this was well worth the extra missing teeth and large bruise he now sported. He really didn't understand why the Great Harry Potter sir had arranged for the switch, but he was ever so grateful.

#

"This sucks," said Harry, slamming the Muggle studies text book onto the table.

"What's up?" asked Ernie, secretly grateful for an excuse to stop for a break.

"This," said Harry, waving his hand over the collections of books and scrolls piled up in front of them. "Muggle studies was supposed to be an easy pass, but this is ridiculous."

"But you're Muggle raised, shouldn't you already know all of this?" asked Ernie.

"I would, if it's wasn't totally wrong," said Harry.

"Well I think it is fascinating," said Hermione. "It's intriguing to see how wizards view the Muggle world."

"Confusing and a load of rubbish you mean," said Harry.

"It's a perfect opportunity to learn how a different culture views things," said Hermione.

"It's a waste of time and energy," contradicted Harry. "None of it is even slightly useful, and since it is all ass-backwards, or at least a hundred years out of date, I have to learn it in order to pass, and that is just not going to cut it - I might as well be doing a real subject that at least has some practical application."

"Well you could always drop it and actually try to pass your other electives," suggested Hermione smugly.

Harry gave her a disgusted look.

"Yes, but that's not how it should be," he said. "Look, as Muggle born and raised, aren't you at least slightly insulted at the view Wizards have of Muggles? I mean come on, they still think we sit in dark rooms watching black and white films without sound and never travel more than a few miles from the place we are born! We are taught more accurately about strange half-mythical animals than we are about the rest of the human race."

"I can see it's a bit old, but surely it's not that bad," said Ernie. "I mean everybody knows your cinemas have sound now, and every home probably has a wireless of course."

"See what I mean?" Harry asked Hermione pointedly.

"Nevertheless, there is not much that you can do about it," said Hermione. "This is what they expect you to know, so if you want your grade, you'll just have to learn it."

Harry slumped back in his chair, an angry scowl on his normally placid features as he watched his easy pass slipping away right before his eyes.

He jammed his hands into his pockets and stared at the pile of books while Hermione and Ernie went back to work on the assignment. There had to be a way to make this easy. Maybe he could apply for some sort of exemption based on the fact he was Muggle raised - nah, others would be doing that if it were possible.

Idly he played with the latest memory spheres from Smiley, rolling them around in his hand in a soothing routine as an idea began to percolate.

"Hermione, if you had to pick a movie or two to show a reasonably open minded but ignorant Pureblood like Ern here-"

"Oi!" protested Ernie.

"- what the Muggle world is really like, what would you choose?" he asked.

"You'll never get permission to take a class of wizards into a cinema," said Hermione, "and with good reason too. Can you imagine the chaos they would cause blundering around the city?"

"Hey, come on now," said Ernie looking a bit hurt by the conversation.

"No," agreed Harry, "but what about if I can get the cinema to come here?"

"Electricity doesn't always work properly in magically saturated areas," argued Hermione. "Modern projectors are quite sophisticated you know, and TVs will have no hope."

"Oh I realise that," said Harry, smiling as he took one of the now notorious spheres from his pocket and held it for her to see.

Hermione's eyes widened.

#

Susan Bones paused at the door of the classroom. Last year she had reluctantly come to accept seeing that horrible mannequin, Larry, sitting in History of Magic in Harry's place. This year had been better, with Harry unable to sleep meaning there was at least one other person awake to keep her company during the long hours they were forced to sit in the class.

She needed that company in order to stay awake, but her Aunty had time and again insisted every subject needed to be treated with the utmost respect and she had foolishly promised to do her best in even this pointless class.

At least that had been the case until a couple of weeks ago when Harry had somehow convinced a House Elf to take his place. How the teacher, ghost though he was, failed to see anything amiss when his arguably most famous student ever was replaced by an elf wearing a black mop on his misshapen head and with glasses drawn on his face in grease paint, she did not understand.

Ignoring students who were obviously not paying attention, or even sleeping was one thing, but a student being replaced by a creature not even of the same species was ludicrous, even if it did appear to be a lot more interested than any of the real students ever were.

When Justin had somehow managed to coerce a second elf to take his place it started getting silly.

Still, the scene in front of her was a whole new level of absurd.

There wasn't one elf in the class, or two, or even five. Every single student was missing, and in their place were a multitude of elves, more than there were students normally, all wearing the most ridiculous substitutes for hair, including one who had apparently decided a full grown hedge was a decent hairdo.

Well, maybe, if it was meant to be Hermione...

Anyway, now Susan faced a dilemma. There was no way she was going to sit in that room with all those strange elves, but she had made a promise.

"Just go the library," said a voice behind her. "That's what I plan to do, eventually."

"Harry!" said she, startled by his sudden appearance. "What?"

"I can learn far more by reading the books than I can in that room listening to old Ghosty go on and on, and quite frankly, those elves give me the willies. There is something very wrong with them," answered Harry.

"That's a bit mean," said Susan. "I thought they were your friends and were doing you a favour?"

"One of them was doing me a favour because I had helped them out, but the rest have made deals with Ern and the others all by themselves," he answered peering around her into the room. "But it's not that that makes me worried; apparently, they like it – the classes that is. I mean really like it, love even."

While she didn't want to agree, there was no arguing with that. Liking Binns' classes was definitely a bit too strange - weird even.

"You know, Hermione is not going to be happy," she said after a moment.

"What, because we are getting out of class?"

"No, because it looks like an elf is using her for a model, and it is not flattering."

Harry poked his head around her and looked further into the room.

"Oh, bugger. I see what you mean, but hey, it wasn't my idea. At least I don't think it was, but I suppose it's possible."

"You know she is not going to believe you, one way or the other," said Sue, enjoying watching Harry squirm. "She is going to hound you for weeks about this."

Harry sighed in defeat.

"So what's it going to take?" he asked. "For you to keep quiet, that is."

He knew he should have asked the elves for something a bit more subtle, but subtle really wasn't one of his strong points.

#

"Harry, Harry, can you hear me? Wake up, Harry. Come, on Buddy."

Harry weakly tried to open his leaden eye, only to be almost blinded by light when he finally managed to crack them open. Every inch of his body ached, and it felt like a drunken elephant had been set lose inside his skull to run amok.

"Wasffd?" he asked, his mouth refusing to properly form words.

"You fell off you broom, during the match," said a voice.

"Bullssjhhfft," he denied.

"It's true," insisted a different voice. "You were up really high when the Dementors came in and they must have overwhelmed you or something because the next thing we know, you were falling. Luckily Dumbledore was there or you would have been squished flat."

"It was very scary," said a third voice Harry decided sounded like Hannah.

"Not as scary as seeing Dumbledore nearly lose it," said Cedric, a slight shudder in his voice. "I thought he was going to blow his stack for a while there."

A round of murmurs agreed as Harry forced his eyes to open again.

He was in the hospital on one of the beds, still in his Quidditch gear and surrounded by what looked like the whole team, plus a couple of extras. They were all soaking wet.

Slowly memories of the horrific game against Gryffindor came back to him. Cedric was playing one of the other positions for some reason Harry never bothered to figure out, so he had been dragged off the reserve bench yet again and roped into playing seeker.

Why they had forced him to play in weather better suited to sitting inside near a warm fire he would never know, but insist they had, with strict instructions to not end the game until they were at least sixty points ahead.

He had tried to stay where he was told to patrol for the snitch, but it had just gotten too ridiculous. Even with his robes enchanted with multiple spells to keep water and cold away, he was quickly soaked and miserable, so he made possibly the worst decision ever.

"Not 'mentors," he mumbled after taking a grateful drink from a cup offered to him by a very concerned looking Han.

"What?" she asked.

"Not Dementors," he repeated slowly and painfully.

"What, did somebody knock you off?" demanded Cedric.

"No," said Harry, slowly regaining strength enough to prop himself up slightly on his elbows. "I er, passed out."

"What from?"

"Lack of air I think."

A confused silence greeted him.

"You see, I didn't want to be in the storm anymore," he said, sheepishly. "So I started flying up higher, trying to get above it. I figured it would be calmer and easier to fly up there, so I could just nick back down every now and then to check the score."

"Fly above the storm? Are you completely bonkers?"

"Apparently so," he answered sadly sinking back down. "I was only out for a second, but the broom shut off and I started falling. I reckon I could have gotten it back under control, but then I hit the Dementors."

"I heard they got over excited by all the emotions and couldn't help themselves," said somebody Harry couldn't see.

"Yeah, well all I know is they have pretty hard heads," said Harry. "And they are bony as hell. I reckon the second one I smashed into was carrying a couple of bricks in its pockets or something, because he did some serious damage."

Another silence reigned.

"When you said 'hit the Dementors', you know I didn't think you meant you actually touched them," said Malcom, one of the chasers.

"Don't say it like that," said Maxine the beater. "You make that sound dirty."

"Get your mind out of the gutter," said Heidi, the other chaser.

For a moment Harry wondered if some brain damage had occurred, since he was recalling everybody's full names for a change, but then he figured "Why worry about it?" and just went with the flow.

"Anyway, I think you must be the only person I have ever heard of ever actually getting that close to one-"

"Five, I think, I wasn't really counting after the second one-" Harry corrected.

"-And live to tell the tale."

"I wouldn't be going too close to them any time soon," warned Malcom. "They might hold a grudge."

"Or want you to touch them again," added Max.

"Gutter!" yelled Heidi.

"At any rate, flying that high was pretty stupid," said Cedric. "And you cost us the game."

"What? Why?" demanded Harry, finding himself oddly upset at the thought of losing his first game ever.

Again the spectre of brain damage raised itself in his mind, but then it too was shrugged off 'as not important enough to bother thinking much about'.

"After the Dementors flooded the pitch, Madam Hooch called the game, and since the Gryffindors were ten point ahead and nobody could find the snitch-"

"Oh, here it is," said Harry, reaching into a pocket of his uniform to withdrawn the small winged ball. "It was all cold and lonely so I was holding onto it until we got the points you wanted.

"Doesn't that mean Hooch has to give us the points and the win?" he asked with mock innocence.

For the third time, silence greeted him, but this one he felt quite smug about.

#

"On the count of three," said Professor Lupin. "One — two — three — now!"

Red sparks leaped from his wand, flinging the trunk lid open.

Professor Snape, dressed in Neville's grandmother's clothes, stepped out.

"Riddikulus! Riddikulus! Riddikulus!" screamed Harry, waving his wand frantically.

#