Second Chance at Saving Them {Harry Potter}

A Busy Day

A little late, I know, but I had a very busy weekend, including having a friend that I only see maybe once a month, then I was playing games with my family. Have any of you played Fibbage? It's awesome. Anyway, for my question,

What is Ginny Weasley's zodiac sign?

Answer: Leo!
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Harry and Ginny were soon the center of the Hogwarts rumor mill. Many believed they were already dating, and some were betting on when they were going to make it official. Fred and George had been facilitating the rumors and making a large profit off of them. Harry didn't have a problem with this, but only because he knew the profits were all going towards Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. He was already planning on giving them his Triwizard winnings next year, but if they could earn even more money they might be able to develop their tricks and pranks with more precision. Maybe they could even find people to test on that weren't underage. God only knew they didn't need them testing them on first years again. Percy seemed blissfully unaware of the underground betting ring that had its headquarters in Gryffindor Tower, and Ginny, Ron, and Harry were sure to keep him out of the room when the twins were taking bets. Hermione did her part by not telling him when they were.

March brought about the beginning of teachers cracking down on students because four months was, according to them, the perfect amount of time to prepare for final exams. Harry was sitting in Transfiguration and, during a moment of him actually dividing his complete attention to something he'd learned years ago, heard as McGonagall began reviewing material from the beginning of the year, including Animagus Transfiguration. He had gotten so wrapped up in keeping a low profile and Bellatrix Lestrange that he had forgotten that he'd planned on becoming an Animagus again. He briefly wondered if he would get bonus points for showing up as an owl to his Transfiguration final, but he immediately dismissed the thought, considering he was supposed to be an average powered wizard and wasn't supposed to be drawing attention to himself.

His musings were interrupted by McGonagall. You could always count on her to catch you daydreaming. "Mr. Potter, I had asked how you can differentiate between a wizard's Animagus form and a natural animal."

"Sorry Professor, I got lost in thought. Well, it's very hard to unless you are able to study them. Animagus animals have markings that match a characteristic of the wizard that transforms into it, such as glasses or a scar." He himself had a red mark on his forehead as an owl.

"Very good Mr. Potter, ten points for Gryffindor." Harry sighed in resignation. He'd since given up on the idea of Gryffindor ever losing the House Cup while he was a student here. Besides, he could never bring himself to be completely frustrated with McGonagall, especially when it came to House points. It may have been frustrating as a child, but she was exceedingly fair when it came to dishing out reward and punishment. He was counting on a lack of a big end of the year disaster that would force him to step in, and so far the year was mostly uneventful. Gryffindor was in last by over a hundred points, partly due to Ron switching out Malfoy's telescope in Astronomy with one of Fred and George's prototypes (he'd made sure it wouldn't hurt him too bad, though.) But the biggest thing had been when Harry had accidentally dropped a rather large pot of Puffapods on the floor of the greenhouse. It had been so bad that classes had to be canceled for the rest of the day so they could be cleared out. He'd gotten a lot off for that, plus detention. It was almost three, but Harry convinced Professor Sprout he'd tripped over a root, which was true.

If it hadn't been for Lupin's class, there was a chance Gryffindor would be in first, even with Harry's trip up. Harry had offhandedly joked about how nothing he could do would ever keep Gryffindor from winning the House Cup in the end. Lupin had been there and took it as a personal challenge of sorts. He frequently found the most mundane reasons to take points away from Harry and the others. He was still sure to award other Gryffindors their proper points, though. Once, and Harry knew it was his inner Marauder, he rigged the desks to buck off anything placed on them for the entire class period and had somehow gotten Harry to take the blame. Unfortunately for that class period, Harry had already charmed the board to change anything written on it into an insult aimed at either Lupin or whatever he'd been trying to write about it. (Harry had gotten the idea from the Marauder's Map.) Very little got done during that class period, besides an unprecedented amount of points being lost during a single class period, breaking the previous record of the Marauders themselves, who had started a full-on revolution during one of their sixth year Defense Against the Dark Arts classes.