In the morning, Harry was awake very early. He was so excited. His last year of Playschool was going to start today, and Hermione would be there, too. He quickly crawled out of bed and climbed into Poppy’s bed. “Aunt Poppy, get up. Hurry! It’s morning, and I have to go to Playschool!”

“Oh, Harry dear, it’s only half past four in the morning, that’s much too early; let’s sleep a bit more,” Poppy answered lazily.

Harry turned around. Back in his room, he climbed onto a chair and pulled trousers, underwear, and a T-shirt out of his wardrobe. The T-shirt was red and had a dog, a stag, and a wolf on it as well as the text ‘come play with the Marauders’. Harry didn’t like this shirt at all. He knew that Uncle Sirius had given it to him for his birthday, but Aunt Poppy so far hadn’t managed to put the T-shirt on him. Harry put the shirt in front of him onto the floor and stared at it. Two minutes later, the T-shirt was dark blue with a slightly lighter water phoenix like his own Animagus form. The phoenix flew around the text, which now said, ‘Who wants to prank a Marauder?’

Very contentedly Harry dressed himself and left his room through the Hospital Wing, where he saw that the curtains were drawn around the bed nearest to Poppy’s office. Of course he knew that he wasn’t allowed to go further than the curtains but his curiosity got the upper hand and he quickly slid behind the curtain. Harry spotted an unfamiliar girl in the bed, obviously a first year who had to spend her first night in the Hospital wing. “Hi there,” Harry called out to the girl, who lazily opened her eyes. “I’m Harry. Who are you, and why are you here?”

“I’m Melanie, and I’m a Slytherin first year. Are you a first year too? You look very small.”

Harry smiled. “No, I’m only five, but I live here in the castle with my aunts and uncles. Are you sick?”

The girl blushed and hesitantly told him that she had a strange rash on her arms and that they didn’t know if it was an illness or an allergy or whatever. Harry stepped over to the girl and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Show me your arms,” he instructed the girl, who sat up and hesitantly held out her arms for him to see. “Don’t be afraid, I’ll try to help you, just don’t move your arms for a moment,” Harry said and seeing Melanie nod, he gripped her arms, one in each hand.

Completely oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t supposed to do any magic, Harry summoned his magic and concentrating on his hands, let the magic flow into her arms. Feeling utterly exhausted Harry released his grip on the girl’s arms and slowly opened his eyes. Melanie sat there, stunned, her eyes wandering between her now flawless arms and Harry.

“What did you do?” she asked with confusion.

“I healed you,” Harry answered as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “Sometimes I can heal people, but only with outside illness, not with inner diseases.”

“Do you think I can leave then?”

“I wouldn’t do that because Aunt Poppy and Uncle Severus would be very angry with you. You have to wait until Aunt Poppy lets you go. All right, I have to go to Playschool now. See you soon.”

-----

Harry quietly left the Hospital Wing and walked over to his classroom, astonished that nobody was there yet. He tiredly sat down on a chair and laid his head on the table in front of him. Two hours later, he woke up when Poppy shook his shoulders. “Harry, sweetie, what are you doing here? It’s still much too early. Let’s go to the Great Hall for breakfast. School will start in an hour; you have enough time.”

Harry hardly moved his head. “’m tired, don wan breakfast.”

Seeing that his eyes had closed again, Poppy sighed exasperated. She pointed her wand at the child, “Ennervate.” When Harry woke up again, she held a phial of Pepper-up Potion to his lips. “Drink this. You will either accompany me to breakfast, or I will put you back to bed where you will stay all day long,” she said sternly.

“Sorry, Aunt Poppy,” Harry replied yawning and stood up, slowly trailing after Poppy until they reached the Great Hall.

“Please go in and eat. I have to return to the Hospital Wing because I have a patient I must tend to,” Poppy told him and went on her way, muttering to herself about excited little boys.

In order to sit together with his aunt and uncles like he often did when he wasn’t feeling really well or was tired, Harry approached the Head table when he suddenly heard Bill and Charlie calling him over to the Gryffindor table.

When Harry sat down between Bill and Charlie, Bill handed him a small parchment. “Here, Harry. I’ve been in the library early this morning and have searched for your spell. What are you going to do with it? Do you really want to perform that? And shall I help you with it?”

Harry giggled before he whispered, “I want to do it on Uncle Sirius’ classroom!”

Charlie, who was just drinking his pumpkin juice, gasped and the juice spread all over the table. “You what!” he breathed.

“All right,” Bill whispered back. “Shall we do it immediately? I can cast the spell. It doesn’t seem to be difficult, and then we can have you as Secret Keeper.”

“But everyone will know when we leave the Great Hall now,” Harry replied anxiously.

“That’s all right. We can tell them you felt sick and had to sick up and I accompanied you.”

“All right,” Harry answered, already feeling very sick at the thought of facing his Aunt Poppy later.

“Now then let’s run,” Bill said, and the two of them quickly left the Great Hall.

Bill had to cast the Charm three times until it finally worked and he couldn’t see the door of the Defence classroom anymore. Harry only had to say, “I promise to keep the secret.” Nevertheless he felt his magic drain even more. They quickly ran back to breakfast, which fortunately wasn’t finished yet.

Harry threw an apologizing glance at the Head table from where several eyes were watching him and slowly resumed eating a few bites. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong, Harry?” he could hear Severus ask.

Before Harry could even think about what to reply, Charlie told the professor, “Harry felt sick and Bill brought him out of the Hall.”

Severus looked at Harry worriedly and repeated, “Harry, what’s wrong?”

Harry stood up and raised both arms, giving Severus a pleading look. Severus sighed and picked up the child. Harry tiredly lay his head on Severus’ shoulder and said, “Sorry, I did magic in the morning to help the girl in the Hospital Wing, and now I’m so tired and my head hurts. But don’t tell Aunt Poppy. I want to go to Playschool.”

Severus sighed. With Harry in his arms, he walked out of the Great Hall and entered an unused classroom. He sat Harry down before he quickly checked on him and sat on the chair next to Harry. “Harry,” he started, sighing. “What am I going to do with you? You knew that you weren’t supposed to do magic, but nevertheless you did Healing magic depleting your magic again. I cannot understand why you repeatedly do this without asking Poppy or I beforehand. Don’t you think that if Poppy or I wanted you to heal the girl that we’d have called you? But we didn’t want you to do such a thing because we know that you aren’t recovered enough to do Healing magic.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry replied quietly.

“You don’t have to be sorry; you just shouldn’t do it, especially as you know the consequences. I will give you a Pepper-up Potion, but I don’t know if that will be enough to bring you through your lessons. If not, tell Amelia and return to your room.”

Harry gratefully drank the Potion, feeling much more alert now. “Thank you, Uncle Severus.”

Severus accompanied him to the Playschool classroom. It was still quite early, and Amelia was the only one there. He made Harry sit down and quickly exchanged a few words with Amelia before he headed for his own classroom. A few minutes later, Harry’s friends started to enter the classroom. Harry gave Hermione a happy smile when she slipped into the chair next to him.

The minute Playschool ended, one of the House elves popped up in front of Amelia and handed her a message. “Harry,” she called the boy over after reading the message. “We have to go to the staff room for an urgent teachers’ meeting and I’ve been told to bring you along as Poppy will be there too.”

“Do I have to go, Amelia? I’m tired and want to go home.”

“You can sleep over there Harry, no problem.”

When they arrived in the staff room, Poppy hadn’t arrived yet but Severus was there, and Harry didn’t hesitate an instant before he climbed onto Severus’ lap, leaned against the teacher, and closed his eyes. In spite of the long nap he had taken during lunchtime he was already half asleep when the meeting started.

“Care to explain why we’re meeting here on the first day of lessons, Albus?” Severus drawled.

“I shall leave the explanation to Sirius,” the Headmaster answered, motioning his younger colleague to speak.

“My classroom is gone,” Sirius blurted out.

“Gone?” Minerva asked incredulously.

“Yes, I can’t see the doors to the classroom. Even in my office, the door has vanished.”

“Sirius, do you think it’s the right time to keep us busy by playing a prank on us?” Remus asked, outraged.

“Really, Sirius, that’s not funny,” Flitwick agreed.

Harry lazily opened an eye. “What’s the problem? The Defence classroom is on the right side of Uncle Sirius’ office, isn’t it? What’s changed?”

“Nothing, Harry, it’s all right. Go back to sleep,” Severus said calmingly, and Harry obediently closed his eyes.

“Now, it doesn’t make much sense to talk about the matter here. Let’s go and see if the room has really vanished,” Albus suggested and the teachers left the room with Severus carrying a clingy Harry.

“We should put up Hourglasses for teachers in either the staff room or the Great Hall,” Minerva said sternly when the procession reached the Defence classroom. “The classroom is right there. That’s not funny, Sirius!”

“But I swear, it wasn’t there before!” Sirius insisted.

“All right, now, our meeting is adjourned. I shall see you at dinner,” Albus threw in, shaking his head at Sirius.

-----

It was not until the next morning that Sirius noticed none of his students could see the classroom either.

As there wasn’t any other classroom nearby that was as huge and safe for the Defence practise as the Defence classroom, Sirius took his students out onto the ground. However, as the weeks passed, it became colder and colder and it started to become rainy, too. Sirius was not very pleased about the prank someone was obviously playing on him.

A few days after he had cast the Fidelius Charm, Bill made Harry write on a small piece of parchment, ‘Defence classroom, right of Defence office.’ He carefully watched that the letters Harry wished on the parchment were not Harry’s normal writing, so that nobody could recognize who had written the message. During the next weeks, Bill and Charlie carefully showed the message to certain groups of students, so that at the beginning of November when it snowed for the first time, about half of the students were able to enter the Defence classroom.

After the first snow, Harry started to feel really bad about what they had done. He had noticed that Uncle Sirius had caught a bad cold and knew that in fact it was his fault because his actions had forced the teacher to hold his lessons outside in the cold. One day, he spoke to Bill and Charlie about the matter. “Do you know if there’s a way to cancel the Charm?”

Bill frowned. “Yes, there should be a Counter Charm but frankly speaking I don’t know it. Charlie and I have already spent a few hours in the library searching for the Counter but we haven’t found anything yet. Maybe we should just let your piece of parchment go around a little more until all the students know the room,” he suggested.

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Harry agreed. “I feel really bad about it. However, I’d like to play more pranks on Uncle Sirius.”

Bill raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard about you playing pranks together with my twin brothers. Are you now trying to make Charlie and me pranksters?”

Harry laughed. “No, but it’s funny, and as long as the teachers are stupid enough not to catch us and as long as it doesn’t really harm anyone…” he slowly trailed off.

-----

At every single staff meeting that Harry attended, sooner or later the topic turned to the Defence classroom. “Ahhh,” Sirius sighed one day in November. “It was freezing cold outside, and when we started our lesson a lot of students complained, telling me they already had to see Poppy because they got a cold during our last Defence lesson.” He let out a big sneeze. “Anyway, when I asked them where they suggest we should go, they told me to go into the Defence classroom. And when I asked ‘Can you see it then?’ they told me, ‘Yes, of course, why not?’ All right, we tried it out, and indeed more than half of them were able to enter the room. I told the other half to stay outside and at least listen but later they told me they couldn’t hear anything. When I tried to make them follow the lesson from my office, it was the same.”

“That sounds as if the room is under the Fidelius Charm,” Albus said pensively. “But why do half of the students know the secret and the other half don’t?”

“Can it be a prank of one of the students?” Minerva asked.

“If it is, then it must be seventh years,” Albus replied immediately. “It affords a lot of magic for the caster and even more for the Secret Keeper. Maybe we should teach the students the counter course, so that the culprits can end their prank.”

“No!” Remus contradicted. “It can’t be the Fidelius. Nobody showed me the information about the whereabouts of the Defence classroom. Nevertheless, I know where it is.”

Severus let out a loud sigh. He now knew who the Secret Keeper was, but he swore to himself that nobody would get this information from him.

Sirius threw him an angry glance and exploded. “What is it, Snivellus? Care to tell who’s been fooling the whole school for months? Do you think it’s funny to have Defence lessons out on the grounds? Achoo, achoo.”

“My students in fact told me that they were enjoying it very much,” Minerva threw in, smiling. She promised herself that she would commend the culprit whenever she got hold of him or her secretly for a well-done prank – and for managing to prank the greatest prankster Hogwarts had ever seen.

“It’s this person’s fault that I’m sick from teaching outside in the cold all the time, and still Snivellus is going to cover him,” Sirius shouted.

Poppy felt Harry nestling deeper into her robe. “Sirius, behave yourself. Harry is five years old, and nothing gives you the right to shout in front of the child. Look how frightened he is,” Poppy scolded the teacher. She pulled a phial of Pepper-up Potion out of her robes and handed it to Sirius. “Here, take this and go to bed. We will think further about the matter.”

“And moreover, behave yourself, Sirius. Your colleague’s name is Severus as you well know. I don’t want to hear you calling Severus names anymore,” Albus said sternly. He waved his hand in the direction of the door, and suddenly on the wall just beside the door Hourglasses like those for the four Houses appeared. However, they were smaller and there were just as many as there were teachers at Hogwarts. Each glass had a name on the top and red and blue marbles were hovering over the glasses. Everyone’s glass showed the number ‘zero’, only the glass named ‘Sirius’ held two red marbles and showed ‘minus two’.

“Ooh,” Sibyl Trelawney’s voice could be heard. “My inner eye sees Sirius scrubbing the Great Hall floor with a tooth brush and I see little Harry helping him.”

Minerva let out a short snort but that was the only sign Trelawney’s prediction had been heard at all.

“Oh, thank you Albus, then hopefully you won’t miss what Severus is teaching Harry about Remus and me, he…” Fortunately, the rest of what he was going to say was overturned by a coughing fit; otherwise additional red marbles would have fallen into his glass for implying that Severus was speaking ill of his colleagues.

Albus waved his hand in the direction of the Hourglasses once more and told the others, “By the way, only Minerva and I are able to give or take points – just for your information.”

Remus stood up, picked up the potion from the table, giving Poppy a grateful nod, and pulled Sirius out of the room.

“Now, Albus. Did we have any relevant items to discuss tonight or was it just a way of wasting our time?” Severus asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I just wanted to discuss the dates for the Hogsmeade weekends, but it’s already dinner time, so we can speak about it the next time,” Minerva spoke up.

“Then let’s finish this conversation and head to the Great Hall,” Albus said, popping a lemon drop into his mouth.

-----

“Poppy, may I borrow Harry for a minute?” Severus asked softly, approaching the Medi-witch.

“Harry, are you still awake?” Poppy asked softly, nudging the small boy. “I’m not sure why but recently he’s always very tired,” she explained to her colleague.

“Hmm?” Harry asked lazily, turning his head.

“Harry, may I speak to you for a minute, please?” Severus turned to Poppy. “I will bring him with me to the Great Hall.”

In the meantime everyone else had left, and as soon as Poppy had closed the door after her Severus quickly threw a Silencing Spell around Harry and himself. “Harry!”

“Hmm?”

“Please tell me something: Are you the Secret Keeper?”