Severus followed Potter to a tucked away corner of the library and had to wonder what had possessed him to agree to go with him. He was still fuming for so many reasons he hardly knew where to begin sorting it out.

Chronologically, his day had started out terribly. Aside from the horror of waking up in Gryffindor tower surrounded by hormonal teenagers, his books had been delivered directly into his morning oatmeal.

He’d been able to clean it up easily enough, but he should have known then that his day was going to be bad.

Then he’d had to watch as all the sixth year Gryffindors had gone to Defense without him. A small part of him knew that a significant part of the anger he felt at that came from the regularity with which he’d been excluded from groups growing up.

However, he chose to focus on the anger that was directed at Dumbledore, since it was his fault that he was even in the position to have feelings of isolation from his childhood brought to the surface.

He sat and fumed at Dumbledore for a moment before he continued sorting through his day.

After a morning spent catching up on potions journals that he had been neglecting for quite some time, he’d gone to lunch and, out of habit, sat with the same crowd he’d sat with at breakfast.

This ended up being a mistake because all they did was rave about Professor Kirke, which had brought back all the feelings he’d been trying to suppress!

Severus was brought back to the preset briefly when he realized that he’d been sitting in the library with Potter for at least some time but had not actually done anything yet. He quickly pulled out a random book from his bag and pretended to start reading it.

Now physically occupied, Severus turned his thoughts back to his day.

On the way to Potions he’d had to listen to Ronald Weasley and Granger insult him! It had taken all his self-control to not start taking points and assigning detentions then and there. He idly wondered, through his potent anger, if Albus had remembered to remove him from the list of people authorized to award points and resolved to test it as soon as he could.

Frankly, Severus suspected that Chen had been lying in wait for someone, likely him, to say something worth overhearing. Her timing had simply been too good for anything else to be the case.

The lecture had been devastatingly boring, but Severus had expected that. What he had not expected was to be held after class.

Remembering what Chen had said to him made Severus nearly tear the pages of his book in his fury.

Once the classroom was empty, Chen beckoned Severus to the front of the room. He reluctantly stood up, slinging his bag on his shoulder as he went, and made his way to stand in front of her- his- desk.

Chen leaned back in his (his!) chair and steepled her fingers before she said, “I asked you to stay after because I wanted to point something out to you. Did you notice how I refrained from singling you out from the rest of the class? That is how a professional, adult, person handles it when being forced to interact with someone they don’t like.”

“How da-“ Severus tried to say.

“No." Chen's expression brooked no room for argument. "There’s no excuse for singling out an individual student. We both know that’s what you did to Mr. Potter, and other Gryffindors." She paused then, as though to see if he would try to refute it again, then continued, "You’re dismissed, but I look forward to showing you how a professional teaches your subject for as long as I am here.”

There was a moment where Severus nearly drew his wand, but he took a deep breath in and suppressed the impulse. He whirled around and left without another word.

He could not believe she had had the audacity to address him that way. It was one thing coming from McGonagall, a woman who had been his professor, colleague, and almost-friend, and another thing entirely coming from someone he didn’t know.

Honestly, it was like the woman didn’t even know Potter was a celebrity. She clearly didn’t understand that Potter was singled out for adulation that he didn’t deserve in all his other classes. Severus was simply doing his part to level out the kind of attention Potter received for his undeserved celebrity status.

He grimaced at the realization that he would be attending classes with Potter the next day and would have to watch it actually happen. And he was going to have to sit through classes on things he already knew at the same time. He thought longingly of his now empty liquor cabinet in his quarters.

Severus finally actually looked at the book he was holding and saw that it was his copy of the book published every year containing the year’s best advancements in Potions.

This did look interesting, so Severus finally pushed away his still simmering anger and turned to the next paper in the book.

He quickly scanned the author list, something he did with every article he read since different authors had different biases and it was best to keep the author’s bias in the back of his mind while reading, and felt all his anger come raging back at the author’s name.

Christina Chen had written this paper.

He slammed the book shut and shoved it back in his bag.

“You alright there?” Potter asked.

“I’m fine. I just remembered that I wanted to explore the grounds before dinner. We can talk about a healing potion to brew later,” Eli said curtly as he finished packing up his things.

“Oh, okay then,” Potter said, turning back to his books.

Eli hurried out of the castle and around the lake to sit beneath a tree in blessed solitude for the rest of the evening.

After studying in the library for a little while longer, Harry decided to go to the Room of Requirement to practice giving his lesson for the next day.

With a professor sitting in on the lesson, he hardly wanted to make a fool of himself by forgetting where he was going with something or what he meant to say next, and the practice would help him sound more polished.

He wondered, as he climbed one of the many staircases on his way through the castle, when Dumbledore was going to announce the DA meeting like McGonagall had said he would. It was Monday afternoon now, and there still had not been anything mentioned. Which was cutting it pretty close since the meeting was Tuesday evening.

Then Harry remembered Dumbledore’s fashionably late entrance to his hearing at the ministry and realized he’d be lucky if he announced it before the meeting started.

Rolling his eyes, Harry shrugged slightly to himself. He was hardly going to harass Dumbledore over it himself, especially when Ginny and Neville were doing such a good job of spreading the word themselves.

They’d hung up posters around the common room and asked friends in the other houses to do the same. And they’d started a serious word of mouth awareness campaign on top of the posters, so word was quickly spreading through the school.

This time around they were including Slytherins in the club. With Umbridge gone and the club officially sanctioned, there was no need to keep it a secret. And if his excursions into Voldemort’s mind and to the Death Eater meetings had taught Harry anything, it was that Voldemort didn’t care who he recruited.

By deliberately excluding a quarter of the school, they were making it easier for Voldemort to get a foothold in his recruitment efforts. And once Harry had recognized this, he’d had the vague urge to do something about this.

Harry had no idea how to go about actively doing something, but he figured that deliberately including Slytherins in the DA was a good first step. Maybe he ought to try and speak to some of the nicer ones in his year and encourage them to come?

It was definitely something to think about, Harry decided as he approached the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy.

Pacing back and forth, Harry called a room that looked like a replica of how he’d like to set up the Great Hall for the lesson. He strode to the front of the large room and pulled out his notes to start practicing.

After a couple run throughs of the lesson, Harry paused to take a break. As he sat down on a plush armchair that the room helpfully provided, he realized with a start that he was disappointed that the room couldn’t provide snacks because he was hungry.

This was an excellent sign that he was beginning to recover from the near-starvation he experienced at the Dursley’s.

He considered calling Dobby to bring him food to celebrate but decided that he had practiced his lesson enough for the day and could just as easily go down to the kitchens to pick up a snack.

Before he left the room, Harry took the opportunity to call up a mirror. He quickly doffed his shirt and called for another mirror, handheld this time, so he could examine his back. He hadn’t had a chance to get a good look since Eli had lent him that bruise balm, and he wanted to see how effective it had been on the deeper welts on his back.

They had felt healed, but he wanted the confirmation of seeing the healed skin.

And he was gratified, and a little surprised to see that not only had all the welts completely closed over, but none of them had scarred like Harry had been worried they would.

His old scars were still there, of course, but it was nice to know that he didn’t have any new ones.

Examination complete, Harry donned his shirt and robes, and headed down to the kitchens for a snack, in a better mood than he had been in a very long time.

Harry sighed with relief as he finally made his escape from the kitchen. The house elves, and Dobby in particular, had been delighted to see him.

Unfortunately, Dobby had needed to see to some chores and only had time to wrap his bony arms around Harry’s knees before he left again.

When he had asked the other elves for a snack, there had been a moment where Harry had worried that they would hurt themselves or break something in their excitement, but they quickly calmed down enough to put together a list of options.

He’d gratefully asked for a plate of mini chocolate chip muffins and a mug of peppermint tea. Far sooner than he would have imagined, a house elf had returned with the food and tea and another elf had conjured a comfortable chair and table for him to sit at with his food.

It had been fascinating to sit in the kitchen, mostly unharassed but for the occasional offer of more tea and other amenities, and watch the elves go about their business. It was remarkable how efficient they were and how they all seemed to be aware of each other, seamlessly avoiding collisions and accidents as they hurried around the kitchen.

He rarely got the chance to sit somewhere and just exist without worrying about the scrutiny of those around him. While the house elves did idolize him to some extent and were obviously over eager to serve him, they still allowed him to go unnoticed while they went about their tasks. It was the nearest thing to anonymous people-watching Harry could manage without being in the muggle world.

Once he’d finished his snack, Harry had attempted to make his escape. The elves had crowded around his knees once again and offered more food in their squeaky voices. Harry had done his best to turn them down politely, but he definitely saw at least one elf burst into tears as he finally slipped through the door into the hallway.

He was now heading back to the common room. He’d spent more time in the kitchen than he’d thought he would, so he didn’t have enough time to really get anything done in the library and he definitely didn’t have time to go flying. So he figured he’d head back to the tower and use the time to read.

When he stepped into the common room, it was mostly empty. It was an incredibly nice day outside, so most of the students were taking advantage of the weather and spending time outside. One of the few people in the room was Neville, so Harry headed over to the table he was seated at.

“Hey Neville, do you mind if I join you?” Harry asked.

Neville looked up from the parchment he was writing on and said, “Yeah, sure,” he glanced over the completely covered table and started to shift books around, “let me just-”

“Oh don’t worry about clearing space for me, I was just going to do some reading,” Harry interrupted before Neville could get too far.

Neville looked a bit relieved at this. “Sorry, I just figured now would be a good time to spread out since there’s hardly anyone here, I didn’t expect anyone to join me.”

“That’s alright, I really don’t need any space. And I’ll be right back, the book I want to read is up in our dorm,” Harry said and turned to head up to their dorm.

Once there, he set his bag on his bed, retrieved the last book he had been reading, then headed back down the stairs to join Neville in the common room.

After Harry was seated, Neville said, “I’m sorry if I made it sound like I didn’t want you to sit with me, I was just trying to say that I didn’t expect to even see you or anyone else, for that matter.”

“That was a good assumption, except I decided I wanted a snack, and the house elves kept me so long that I didn’t have enough time to get started on any assignments or to go flying, so coming here was the best option I had,” Harry said with a warm smile.

Neville smiled back and they lapsed into a companionable silence for the next while. Both of them were expertly able to ignore the occasional burst of noise from the few Gryffindors present.

When it was time to go down to dinner, Harry stood up and summoned his bag from his dorm, quickly sliding the book he’d been reading into it. Neville had stood up when he had and they headed out together.

“So how’s your book?” Neville asked once they sat down in the Great Hall.

“It’s fascinating,” Harry said excitedly, happy to get a chance to talk about what he was reading, “it’s one of the ones Lupin sent to me this summer. It’s on the merits of different defensive styles and it’s got some really good points that I hadn’t ever thought of. And the next chapter is on a style I’ve never heard of, which I am very excited about.”

“So you’re reading it for the DA, then?” Neville asked.

Harry considered this for a moment as he served himself some food. “Partially, I guess? But I asked Lupin for the recommendations long before I knew we were restarting the DA, because I needed the distraction, and this felt like a productive distraction.” He snagged a roll from a basket of them and passed the basket along. “And now I just really enjoy reading about defensive techniques and spells and stuff,” Harry finished.

“That does sound like a good use of time. Do you have a favorite book then?” Neville said between bites of food.

“Let me think for a moment, I’ve read so many good ones it’s hard to decide,” Harry said thoughtfully.

He considered the many books he’d read since the start of the last summer. Lupin and Moody had both given him so many excellent recommendations it was hard to pick one. Then he remembered one of the first books he’d read and how useful it has been.

“I think my favorite book was A Brief Overview of This Century’s Defense Innovations by Imogen Pant. It does a really good job of conveying the background and uses of, as the title says, this century’s defense innovations. What I really like about it is that she does a good job of including worldwide developments that we haven’t heard much of from any of our defense professors. It’s been a great book for finding other books to read too because she references so many throughout the book,” Harry finally said.

“Oh, that does sound fascinating,” Neville said.

“If you want to borrow it, I have it up in our room,” Harry offered.

Neville’s eyes widened slightly and he said, “I would love to, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind,” Harry said, “I just hope you like it as much as I did.”

“I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to say next, so once again they fell into a comfortable silence as they ate. Harry regretted the muffins he’d had earlier, just a bit, when he started getting full sooner than he usually did.

As they sat together, Harry glanced down the table and saw Ron and Hermione boxed in by the fifth and seventh year Gryffindor prefects. Ron and Hermione looked as though they wanted to be sitting anywhere but there, and when Harry made eye contact with Ron, Ron slid his forefinger across his throat and dramatically mouthed “Kill me” .

Harry smirked and shook his head as Ron reluctantly turned back to the conversation.

Continuing his examination of the table, he saw that Ginny was eating with her yearmates and energetically talking about something. As he watched, she gesticulated with the hand holding her fork, but she must have forgotten that she’d loaded it with food, because her gesture sent a forkful of food flying across the table.

He smiled slightly at her antics and continued looking around. After another couple of moments of this, Harry realized who was missing. Eli had never come back from exploring the grounds.

Just to make sure, Harry scanned the table rapidly once more and looked around at the other tables too. He didn’t see Eli anywhere.

“Hey Neville, I’m probably gonna hang out at the table till Eli shows up. He said he was going to explore the grounds, but we got here really early and I haven’t seen him yet. I’m worried he could be lost out there, and I just want to make sure he comes back in,” Harry said, giving the table yet another examination and failing to see the still slightly unfamiliar blonde head.

“If he’s lost, then he’s probably in the Forbidden Forest,” Neville said worriedly. “The castle is visible from pretty much anywhere else.”

Harry glanced up at the enchanted roof and saw that the sun was still fairly high in the sky. “Maybe he just lost track of time, it is still awfully light out, after all. If he hasn’t shown up by the time dinner’s over, I think I’ll take the map and some food and go look for him.”

“I can hang out with you until dinner’s over, but then I should really get back to that essay Kirke assigned us for Defense.”

“If you don’t have time, please don’t feel obligated to sit here with me. Watching to see if Eli comes back doesn’t require more than one person.”

“I’ll definitely take advantage of the opportunity to procrastinate for a little longer,” Neville said with a laugh.

Harry agreed lightly, “Sounds good to me.”

“So are you done with your essay for Kirke?” Neville asked after a moment.

“I am,” Harry said, trying to keep the smugness from his voice. This was the first year that he had put actual effort into his assignments and he was so far doing an excellent job of avoiding excessive procrastination.

To pass the time, Harry and Neville chatted amiably about their classes and eventually about Harry’s plans for the DA. Gradually, it became clearer and clearer that Eli was not going to turn up for dinner.

With a couple minutes left in the dinner period, Harry started loading food onto a plate for Eli. He’d clearly missed dinner, and Harry figured that he would be hungry by the time he found him. And he didn’t want to unnecessarily subject someone to the lair of house elves that masqueraded as a kitchen.

He bid farewell to Neville and summoned the Marauder’s Map. When it arrived he examined it as we walked, looking for the footsteps labeled “Alfonse Hopkirk”.

He eventually spotted them, stationary, at a distant part of the lake. He cast a nifty spell that encased the plate of food in something like plastic wrap that was leakproof and stashed it in his bag for easy transport.

Ready to go, Harry headed out for the lake and the long walk it would take to get there.