New Beginnings

Chapter 34

In the days following, Harry and Draco grew closer if possible. 

Their confession hadn't changed anything because neither were sure if it was meant in a platonic or romantic way and didn't want to damage what they had by questioning it. Furthermore their conversation leading up to it had been about two adults platonic/parental love for Harry and whether or not it was false. There was a ton of evidence supporting the platonic side.

Additionally neither brought it up with a friend to get a second opinion, as that was one awkward conservation they would happily skip.

Harry continued to plan and wait for Ginny, hoping she'd move soon before he grew bored. He wanted everyone to know what a conniving, scheming witch she was. Unfortunately that meant waiting for her to move.

Draco attempted teaching him some patience through wizards chess, but found that either way Harry was absolutely terrible at it. Although he never seemed to back down from a game, knowing he would lose but happy to play anyway. Not that Draco could talk, he was just as bad, he was just guiltyly elated to find someone worse than him. 

There's been a steady stream of Skeeters anonymous articles for days now, including one about her imprisonment as a bug. (Rita left out the unregistered animagus part and now the general populance were convinced Hermione had transfigured her into a bug).

Pansy had mumbled something about a book and just making one instead of multiple articles, because some of them drew off others and she loathed to hoard the Daily Prophet. It sent Draco on a mission to make one, with Rita doing most of it because it was her writing, but he assisted occasionally.

Come mid march, Harry was confident his plans were successful, the only problem was that he was most definitely going to fail his Defense and Transfiguration OWLs. 

Aurora Sinistra had been unable to find someone willing to fill McGonagolls position or take up the cursed Defense role. There was only so much she could do and NEWT and OWL students were suffering the most.

Now there were few solutions that any student could think of aside from getting new teachers and nobody wanted another ministry "approved" teacher. Clubs or study groups were becoming more common, but not massive ones (the collective memory of Gilderoy Lockhart was way too disturbing, especially after he vanished all the bones in Harry's arm).

He supposed it should've been good enough, but Harry found himself easily distracted and couldn't learn a thing. The cover teachers weren't helpful as they weren't really qualified and had only this year's books - Umbridge's - to use. 

Obviously Harry should've been focusing on other things, namely his big plan for Dumbledore's lackeys, except as important as revenge was... His education was more vital. He needed good owls so he could get somewhere. Harry didn't want to leave Hogwarts and end up using his fame to get places, he wanted to prove that he deserved to be wherever he ended up and that meant the best grades in every subject. So far the only one he was failing was Defense and that was because of the lack of proper teachers. 

He supposed that no one would want to follow on from Umbridge and than that stupid rumour about the position being cursed wasn't helpful, but there must've been someone who'd be idiotic enough to ignore both. Nevertheless that person didn't appear.

So Harry took it on instead. With his friends help he took over the position, something the teachers allowed because it meant relaxation time. Gryffindor didn't exactly rally around him, with some teachers still going by book and others just giving over the responsibility, they didn't seem to like the lack of questioning. Especially considering they felt like Harry had abandoned them.