After a shockingly productive couple of hours studying with Ginny, Harry was startled to realized that he was pleased with the lesson he’d written. He’d probably make some revisions while practicing it on Tuesday before the actual meeting, but what he had now was a complete draft.

Harry capped his inkpot, set his quill down, and stretched.

“All done, then?” Ginny asked, looking up from her own work.

“I think so,” Harry said and passed the parchment over to her. “If you want to see the whole thing rather than just hearing bits and pieces you’re welcome to.”

“Gimme, gimme,” Ginny said excitedly, sliding the parchment in front of her and over her own schoolwork.

“It’s really not that exciting,” Harry said, a little nervously.

“You’re not the one who’s been trying to piece together what the lesson’s on from very cryptic questions over the past couple hours! Now shush, I’m trying to read.”

Harry packed away the rest of his supplies while she was reading. He hadn’t showered this morning in his haste to work on the lesson, and he was regretting it now. He figured he could hop in just before lunch- as late as his roommates liked to sleep in, they were rarely still in the dorm this late. He didn’t think he’d have to worry about anyone coming in and seeing his lingering bruising and welts and asking awkward questions.

He was counting down the days till he was healed enough to relax his guard, at least a little, around his roommates. It was much easier to explain away a couple faded scars than still vivid bruising, after all.

Once his things were all put away, Harry leaned back into his chair and started absently tapping his foot while he waited for Ginny to finish reading.

Finally, she handed the parchment back to Harry.

“That was awesome, Harry!” Ginny said excitedly. “I can’t wait for you to actually teach me- and everyone else- that stuff. I’m particularly interested in that shield charm you mentioned, I don’t think I’ve heard of it before and it would have come in handy as a defense against the twins.”

“Ah, yeah, it used to be a bit more commonly used, but it fell out of use for no reason that I could figure out, and when I found it in a book I was reading, I thought it’d be useful to show people. Protego is useless against physical spells, so this shield is perfect to fill that defensive gap,” Harry said, a little uncomfortable with lying to Ginny, but unwilling to share that he’d actually found the spell in Voldemort’s mind.

He’d already elected to not give the lesson on specific strategies to survive an encounter with Death Eaters since he hadn’t quite worked out how to explain where he’d gotten his knowledge. He could maybe get away with claiming he’d seen it all at the ministry this past spring but having a front row seat to their training sessions had given him a much deeper depth of understanding than simple observation of a single fight could account for.

This was a compromise where he could give a lesson on the shield charm that would help defend against the transfiguration that Voldemort tried so hard to teach the Death Eaters, and against flying debris from the more explosive spells. Then, once he figured out a better explanation for his knowledge, he could ask whoever replaced him as the leader of the DA if they would mind giving a lesson on the more specific techniques he’d been recording and brainstorming strategies to fight against.

“So, what’re you gonna do now?” Ginny asked.

Harry stowed his lesson plan in his bag and said, “I thought I’d head up to the tower to take a shower before lunch. How about you?”

“Oh, I’ve still got some work for McGonagall that I procrastinated a lot longer than I should have. I can’t believe she assigned such a long essay the first week back.”

“It is your OWL year, so you’d better get used to all your professors loading you down with work now,” Harry said, his voice exaggeratedly heavy with regret.

“Ugh, you mean this is supposed to be normal now?”

“And only going to get worse,” Harry confirmed.

“Taking the Fred and George route is looking more appealing by the moment. You’d better head out if you want to have time to shower before lunch, though. And I do need to work on this.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I wish you luck on that essay,” Harry said and stood and headed out of the library.

Harry groaned and leaned his head against the shower wall. He couldn’t believe he’d been so careless as to forget his robe. The robe that he had gotten specifically so he wouldn’t have to walk from the bathroom to the dorm in just his towel.

If anyone was around, they’d be able to see his scars that he knew were really suspicious when combined with the welts that they’d also be able to see.

He stood in the stream of water for another couple of moments, prolonging the time before he’d have to make a dash for the dorm. He really hoped no one was in their rooms and bemoaned the design of the tower that forced him to go into the hallway before going back into his room. Each dorm had its own bathroom, but the bathroom did not simply connect directly to the dorm, so if anyone was on the stairs, they’d be able to see him.

Eventually, he sighed and shut off the water. He grabbed his towel and dried himself off before tying it as securely as he could around his waist. Really, Harry thought, I ought to start bringing my wand with me so I can summon things if I forget them.

There was nothing for it for today, however, so Harry steeled himself and rushed out of the bathroom and to his dorm.

He made it without seeing anyone and turned to close the door behind him with a sigh of relief.

“Harry?”

He whirled back around and pressed his back to the door, crossing his arms over his torso as quickly as he could.

“Eli, hey, I was just,” he jerked his head backwards slightly towards the bathroom, “in the shower-“

“What happened to you?” Eli demanded.

Harry froze, his mind scrambling to remember what he’d decided he say in this situation.

“Uh-“ Harry shifted his arms, trying to cover more of his bruises.

“It can’t be that embarrassing,” Eli said with a smirk.

Oh- he thought- well that made things easier, Harry supposed.

“You can’t tell anyone, okay?” Harry said, trying to think of something suitably embarrassing.

Eli’s smirk hadn’t faded, and Harry resigned himself to hearing his lie all around the school by tomorrow at the latest.

“Yeah, I promise,” Eli said at last.

“The other day,” Harry began, “I was flying around enjoying the nice weather outside, and I wasn’t really watching where I was going and. I maybe. Sort of. Flew into the Whomping Willow.”

There was a distinct pause before Eli said, “Isn’t that a tree?”

Harry barked out a laugh. He’d forgotten that Eli was new. He probably didn’t even know why it was embarrassing for him in particular to have flown into a semi-stationary object.

“It’s a tree with a very accurate name. It’s branches swing around, and it really does not like to have its personal space invaded.”

“So- why haven’t you gone to the nurse? It can’t be so embarrassing it’s worth going around with bruises like that.”

“I’m on the quidditch team and my teammates would never let me hear the end of it if they knew, and the bruises are really not that bad,” Harry said.

Eli just stared at him.

“Really, it’s not worth going all the way to the infirmary for. I spend way too much time there anyways.”

Eli sighed and turned to dig through his trunk, “If you’re going to play the mar- you’re going to insist on not going to the infirmary, and on the off chance you don’t actually enjoy suffering,” he tossed a jar at Harry, “at least rub that on your bruises.”

Harry examined the jar. It was unlabeled and generally nondescript. “What is this?”

“It will help with the bruising,” Eli said. The ‘obviously’ went unsaid.

“Thank you,” Harry said gratefully before he finally shuffled over to his bed. It was difficult for him to not simply climb in and close the hangings, but he really didn’t want to give the impression that he needed to hide, since Eli seemed so willing to believe he’d simply flown into a tree. Instead, he sat down on his bed and opened the jar to start rubbing it in.

“Anyways. Next time you fly into a tree you should just go see the nurse. I’m going to go down to lunch now so just put that back on my desk when you’re done with it,” Eli said as he left the room.

Harry was incredibly grateful for both the balm and the solitude. Once Eli was properly gone, he closed the hangings around his bed and rubbed the balm over all his bruises in privacy. He was struck again by his love for magic when he was able to watch the ones on his chest fade before his eyes.

Once he’d done his best to get them all, he got dressed in the clothes he’d set out on his bed.

Then, on his way out of the dorm, he set the jar back on Eli’s desk. Harry was suddenly curious where he’d gotten it from, since he hadn’t seen anywhere that sold things like it in either Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade.

Maybe he’d just missed it, or maybe it was something offered on the side at a store he hadn’t bothered to go into. Harry decided to keep an eye out the next time he went.

As Severus headed back down to the Great Hall, he had to wonder what had possessed him to give Potter that jar. He had probably picked a fight with someone and lost- and didn’t want to admit it. He probably deserved those bruises and knew it and knew that Madam Pomphrey would know it and report him.

Although, maybe he had been telling the truth. He couldn’t imagine quidditch star Potter would be happy to admit that he’d flown into a tree, even if it was a mobile one.

Regardless, he’d gone and just given the brat some of his limited supply of potions. At least the action had the benefit of reducing the chance that Potter would suspect his true identity. It was probably the best way the situation could have gone, really, though Severus deeply wished he had decided to go to the library instead of to the dorm.

After he’d run out of McGonagall’s office, he hadn’t really planned where to go. He’d found himself giving the password to the Fat Lady, and what a ridiculous name that was, when his brain had finally cleared from the haze it had been in.

He pulled his thoughts to his more recent action and ruminated over the fact that he had just. Given Potter some of his balm. Especially since it was his specially altered brew that was far more effective than the commonly used recipe was capable of. And since he had no access to his quarters or his lab, he’d be unable to replace it until after this whole charade was over.

Yet again, Severus bemoaned the fact that were simply no qualified potions masters licensed to sell potions in the UK. If you wanted a potion, you had to brew it yourself, and while Severus usually felt a smug sense of superiority at the fact that most people simply had to do without potions because they didn’t have the skill to make them themselves, it was now an incredibly inconvenient fact.

He idly wondered what Madam Pomphrey was going to do when she ran out of stock. With cold and flu season coming up, she was likely going to need more pepper-up potion than she currently had, and Severus certainly couldn’t be asked to restock for her.

He was far too busy with his mission to perform that tedious task.

And she could hardly do it herself, even though she was one of the few actually qualified to do so, because she had a steady stream of patients occupying her attention most days. Wizards may be hardier than muggles but putting a couple hundred of pubescent wizards in one place was a recipe for injuries and mishaps.

Maybe the woman Madam Bones had sent was also qualified to brew healing potions. He had a hard time believing that Albus was short sighted enough to leave Hogwarts without access to the high quantities of healing potions that it regularly needed.

Severus sighed as he pushed the doors to the Great Hall open. He really didn’t know why he was bothering to get worked up over this. If the situation got desperate enough, Albus would have to give him access to his lab and his potions supplies. And when he did, he would brew himself the antidote to the potion- poison, really, that had given him this teenaged form.

He hadn’t had time to manage it at the same time that he was brewing the potion originally because it was simply too complicated for that, but not having an emergency exit from the mission, so to speak, that he had exclusive control over made him uncomfortable.

And, he supposed, this was why Dumbledore had refused to allow him access to his lab and supplies for the duration of the mission. Besides the obvious explanation that he would arouse too much suspicion by accessing them in this form.

He sat down at a relatively empty part of Gryffindor table and served himself some food. As he sat in comfortable silence, his thoughts turned back to his conversation with McGonagall that he had been so determinedly and mostly effectively not thinking of.

On his way to her office, he’d had the thought that it wasn’t going to go well, but he had been astounded by the degree to which it had not gone well.

Neither his schedule itself nor his interaction with McGonagall had been pleasant in the least. He could not believe she had been so rude to him. He did not conflate the Potters; they were simply so infuriating similar that to think of one was to think of the other. It was hardly his fault if everyone else was too taken with their precious savior to be able to see his blatantly obvious faults.

He realized he’d been gripping his utensils too tight and set them down to shake out his hands.

This whole situation was utterly ridiculous, and while he was used to not getting much respect because his colleagues were quick to treat him as if he were still a student, this was a whole new level of disrespect.

Threatening to put him in detention past when this charade ended for making a reasonable and obvious comparison was uncalled for.

Looking up at the head table, he saw that McGonagall and Dumbledore were sitting next to each other and chatting amicably. That explained a lot. Albus’s insanity had obviously begun to rub off on her.

That was a shame. McGonagall had been one of the very few colleagues he’d actually gotten along with, but Dumbledore’s influence could ruin anyone.

He had been staring at his empty plate for a moment, deciding whether he wanted seconds, when he glanced back up and saw Thomas and Finnegan heading right for him. He decided to leave for the library, immediately.