Becoming Alpha

Chapter Seventeen

After Transfiguration, which was mainly just review from the year before, Harry was found at the Hufflepuff table along with Maya, Ginny, Hermione, Terry, Padma, Matthew Summers, and Bradley Martin. The nine of them were talking about a lot of random things as well as some important things.

"By the way, Tracey and I owled her father today," Harry mentioned suddenly, catching the attention of the four other second years. "I had an idea that she helped me solidify. He'll need the books back sometime in the future to complete it, but there will be a bunch of new ones by the time we're done."

"Really?" Hermione asked with interest, the others also looking at Harry curiously.

"Yup," Harry replied as he took a bite of a sandwich, almost completely ignoring the confused looks of the first year leaders. "You four will understand when it's all ready; don't worry about it for now." The first years nodded in understanding, though Harry saw something in Ginny's eyes that had him a bit confused as he couldn't explain what it was.

After a bit more random chatter, Hermione brought up something that had Harry groaning, Terry mimicking him moments later.

"DADA is going to be such an excellent class!" she exclaimed as she looked at her schedule and saw that she had it the next day after lunch.

"That's going to be the worst class of the year," Harry muttered quietly, but just loud enough for Hermione to hear him.

"Why is that?" she asked dangerously, which would have stopped most people, but Harry wasn't most people.

"Lockhart is an idiot and a fraud," he stated matter-of-factly. "He probably just wrote those books to make himself look good. The only thing he cares about is his image, which means how famous he is. We'll probably learn more by skipping his class and using it to read in the library than by going to it."

"How can you say that?" Hermione yelled quietly, which was lucky as she might have turned a few heads if it had been much louder.

"Have you cross-referenced the dates in the books with one another?" Harry questioned calmly. "I was only skimming while we were in the bookstore and I saw that a bunch of them overlapped."

"Prove it," Hermione challenged with narrowed eyes. Harry saw the rest of the group leaning away from her slightly, the glare in her eyes and the venom in her voice scaring them.

"Sure," Harry replied as he reached into his dragonhide bag and pulled out two random books from Lockhart's collection, a few colored tabs sticking out of each.

Opening both books to the red tabs, he turned them so that Hermione could see the pages and pointed out the dates stated in the books. As he saw that she didn't believe him correctly as it could have been a misunderstanding, he found another two books that had red tabs in them and pointed out the dates. When he saw her relenting, Harry added a couple of ones with blue tabs and showed her the overlapping dates between them.

"I give in; you're right about this one, Harry," Hermione finally admitted as Harry closed his books and packed them away again.

"So wait... our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is a fraud?" Bradley asked in disbelief, showing his Ravenclaw side.

"Yup," Harry replied with a small smile. "It's all in the books, his looks, his arrogance, and just his personality and attitude."

"Wow..." Matthew muttered softly.

"Harry, I have an idea..." Maya began slowly, continuing after getting a nod from him. "Why doesn't one of us write a note in an unrecognizable handwriting and then make copies of it to pass around to our years?"