"Harry!" Tracey greeted him when he and Daphne along with Angela entered the compartment that Roman had saved for them. Tracey had apparently been waiting in there for them as well. "It's great to see you!" She said, getting up and pulling him into a hug.
"Well...that's my signal to leave." Roman said as he stood up once Tracey had let go of Harry. "I'll be off to find Ginny, call if you need me." He said before nodding to everyone and leaving the compartment.
"So, weren't you guys supposed to be in a prefect meeting or something?" Tracey asked.
"Delayed." Daphne huffed as they all sat down, Tracey and Angela sat on one side while Harry and Daphne sat on the other. "We have to go there later since the ones running the meeting are busy. Apparently the Weasley twins have done something that required the help of the head boy and head girl along with all the seventh year prefect to fix." She added with a roll of her eyes. Thor flew down from the trunk rack and landed on Tracey's left shoulder before he rubbed his head against the girl's cheek. Jet meanwhile had slithered up and started resting on Daphne's lap, without pausing Daphne immediately began stroking his head while continuing to talk to the others. "Honestly I'm amazed those two idiots haven't been expelled yet."
"I think Dumbledore has a soft spot for the family," Harry sighed. "plus the twins may be idiots but they are fairly intelligent idiots, magically intelligent at least, so I imagine that they get good enough grades to pass." He added.
"Perhaps, but still." Tracey frowned before shaking her head. "Anyway, Daphne and I have a surprise for you."
"Oh?" Harry asked in an interested voice as he sat up slightly straighter. "What is it?" He asked.
"Well, I can't exactly show you my surprise yet." Tracey admitted. "Not enough room," She said, gesturing around her to the compartment. "but Daphne can show hers."
"Might as well." Daphne said before she gently took Jet and placed him in Harry's lap. Harry's mouth opened to ask a question but found the words suddenly unable to escape his mouth when Daphne suddenly disappeared in front of him and was replaced by a black, blue eyed king cobra.
"Whoa." Harry breathed in amazement.
"Indeed." Angela said dumbly
"Oh...my..." Jet began but trailed off as he looked at Daphne.
"Yes!" Daphne hissed happily. "I can understand you!"
"You can understand me?!" Jet hissed just as happily, both of their tails wiggling back and forth.
"Since when did you become an animagus?" Harry blinked just before Daphne turned back.
"This summer." Daphne grinned. "We both did."
"Oh yeah, you're an animagus as well!" Harry said as he turned to Tracey. "What's your form?" He asked.
"Like I said, not enough room to show you in here." Tracey replied.
"I can fix that." Harry said with a small roll of his eyes before he took out his wand and waved it, causing the compartment to grow larger. "Is that big enough?" Harry asked now that the compartment was nearly double its previous length.
"Show off." Angela said with a small laugh.
"It'll do." Tracey smirked before standing up, Thor flew off of her shoulder and landed on Angela's, a second later she transformed and standing in her place was a white tiger.
"Fucking hell!" Harry blurted out as he looked at her.
"Not a snake though." Jet said, sounding far less impressed. "Snakes are much better."
"True Jet." Daphne agreed before blinking and looking at Jet. "I understood you...I'm not in my animagus form and I understood you!"
"She can understand me!"
"Of course you did," Harry said absently as he kept the majority of his focus on Tracey. "when you transformed you pick up stuff from your animal form, for example I can instantly know what a feline is thinking from their body language and whatever noise they make. You're beautiful, Tracey." Harry smiled before he stood up and transformed into his tiger form. The two tigers greeted each other before rubbing their heads together, after several moments they both turned back into their human forms.
"Wow." Tracey breathed once they were back.
"Did they just have a tiger moment?" Daphne whispered to Angela.
"Yep." Angela nodded, smirking slightly.
"This is amazing," Harry grinned as he waved his wand and turned the compartment back to normal. "why did you two become animagus's?" Harry asked as he sat down back down while Tracey did the same.
"We did it for you," Daphne answered as she grabbed one of his hands with her own. "we care for you and we wanted to be more helpful."
"Yeah," Tracey nodded in agreement. "we've been practising all summer as well." She added while Angela mumbled something about becoming an animagus under her breath.
"You guys are amazing!" Harry grinned.
"This is fantastic news!" Jet said enthusiastically as he climbed back up onto Daphne's lap. "We can talk to each other now!" He said as he looked up at Daphne. "We'll be besties!"
Before anyone could respond the door opened to reveal Draco with Theo, Crabbe and Goyle and Pansy standing behind the door.
"Any room left?" Draco asked in a joking voice, doing a good job at hiding the nervousness he was feeling. Harry gave Draco a calculating look before he smiled and gestured him in.
"Of course, why wouldn't there be?" Harry said with a kind smile.
When Harry entered the great hall later that night it was like a pulse had been shot through the room since every pair of eyes turned to look at him, standing by the entrance with Jet wrapped around his left arm and Thor perched on his right shoulder while the other Slytherin's walked with him, including Daphne who was holding hands with him. Once they were sat down Harry made a point to look at the other students until they looked away.
"Bitches." Jet hissed, earning an amused laugh from Daphne, though she quickly stopped when everyone started looking at her like she was crazy, in their defence she had just started laughing for seemingly no reason.
"Get used to that." Harry whispered to Daphne.
A few moments later the sorting ceremony had begun, after all of the new first years were sorted Professor Dumbledore had stood up and was now standing at a podium in front of the head table.
"Welcome, welcome all to another year at Hogwarts!" Professor Dumbledore spoke with a bright smile on his face. "A warm welcome to all students, old and new." He said before his smile dimmed slightly. "There are only two new announcements regarding the staff, firstly Professor Hagrid will not be here for the first part of the year at least, so I'd like for us all to give a warm welcome to a returning Professor, Professor Grubbly-Plank, who has agreed to take over for the year until Professor Hagrid returns." Professor Dumbledore said, pausing briefly to let the students clap and cheer. "And now," He continued speaking, looking like it took him a bit more effort to maintain his smile. "allow me to introduce our new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Professor Dolores Umbridge." He said as he gestured to the head table where Professor Umbridge was sat, noticeably standing out from the other teachers due to her insistence on dressing head to toe in pink.
"Umbridge, isn't that the bitch that cost Tonks her job?" Jet asked Harry.
"Yep." Harry said in a cold voice, glaring at her Umbridge before his face shifted so he was now supporting a rather unsettling smirk. "And now she's here for the whole year. You know what that means?" Harry asked, looking and sounding positively evil to the Slytherin's sitting around him.
"Payback!" Jet and Harry said at the same time.
"What are they saying?" Tracey whispered to Daphne.
"Let's just say Umbridge is not likely to last a full year." Daphne whispered back, she tried to make herself sound sorry about that fact but wasn't able to manage it.
"Now, quidditch try-outs will begin..." Dumbledore started speaking again, only to be interrupted.
"Hem, hem." Professor Umbridge said with a fake cough as she stood up, she walked around the table and past Professor Dumbledore.
"The audacity!" Blaise gasped dramatically as if he had just been struck.
"Thank you, Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome." Professor Umbridge said, her voice carrying across the hall. She gave everyone a smile that she clearly intended to be used in a way to make her more welcomed, unfortunately for her it was rather creepy. "It is just so very wonderful to be back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, almost as wonderful as it is to see all of your faces smiling up at me." She said, her smile widening. There was a collective snort from a great many students in the hall but Professor Umbridge seemed to have not heard it, nor did she appear to have noticed that the majority of the school hall were not smiling, in fact she seemed to be the only one who was doing so. "I'm sure we will all be the best of friends!" She added, sounding like it was an inevitable thing that would happen.
"Great, our new teacher is blind, deaf and dumb." Harry sighed.
"The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizard of vital importance." Professor Umbridge continued, her eyes never blinking as she continued her 'lovely' little speech. "Although each Headmaster has brought something new to this historic school..." She paused and gave Dumbledore a barely perceptible nod. "...progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged. Let us preserve what must be preserved, perfect what can be perfected and prune practices that ought to be..." She paused once more and leaned forwards. "prohibited." She added in a whisper which was still heard all across the hall, she stood up straighter and let out a small giggle before returning to her seat, leaving the hall in deafening silence.
"Extreme payback." Jet suddenly said.
"Yeah, definitely." Harry said in agreement.
"So," Harry spoke once all of the Slytherin's were in the Slytherin common room that night, he walked into the centre of the common room after handing Jet to Daphne and Thor to Tracey. "does anyone want to take a crack at me?" He offered, wand in hand as he held his arms out, as if welcoming everyone.
"What is he doing?" Blaise whispered to Angela.
"Harry's the current alpha, the king of Slytherin," Angela whispered back. "he's asserting his dominance so others don't get any stupid ideas."
"Anyone? Anyone at all?" Harry asked, slowly walking around in a circle. "No? Hmm," Harry hummed. "if you do want to fight then it doesn't have to be a duel, you can just attack me." He added, he slowed down slightly when he saw a pair of seventh years that looked like they were actually considering it. "Though of course," Harry casually waved his wand and a line of fire erupted from the floor in front of the seventh years, causing them to let out small screams as they jumped back to avoid getting burnt. "if you don't play by the rules then neither will I. So..." Harry stopped walking as he got rid of the flames with a lazy wave of his wand. "...anyone up for it?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked around. After several moments of silence it was clear that nobody was willing to fight him. "Good." Harry told them with a smile. "You keep this level of intelligence up and you might just survive this war." He said before he walked over to his friends. "I'll be back in a few minutes, just got some stuff to take care of." Harry smirked before walking away.
Professor Umbridge sat in her office enjoying a nice cup of tea, having finished changing the design of it a few days ago. The walls were now fully coloured in pink and covered in decorative plates that held pictures of her favourite animal in the world, cats. On her desk she had all of her equipment and paperwork neatly arranged, she also made sure to have a lovely little picture of Minister Fudge there.
Suddenly her relaxation time was cut into when she heard a knock on the door, suppressing a sigh as she wondered who this was, she placed her cup and saucer down on her desk before she spoke up.
"Come in." She called, a second later the door opened. "Potter?" She blinked in surprise, Harry gave her a small nod as he came in to close the door.
"Hello Professor," Harry said as he took a few steps in before pausing and looking around the room. "ooh...cats...hmm, I like cats." Harry said with a dreamy smile.
"What are you doing here? You should be in your common room." She said, resisting the urge to glare at the troublemaker of a boy who had caused so much trouble the ministry with his lies about you-know-who.
"Yeah, but I've got something to discuss with you." Harry said as he walked over and stopped in front of her desk, he opened his mouth to speak but stopped when he saw the photo frame that held Minister Fudge's picture. He picked it up and examined it. "Well, that's not flattering, this photographer clearly had no idea how to take pictures, the Minister's nose looks like Big 'bloody' Ben." Harry said with a shake of his head.
"Mr Potter, put that down now!" Professor Umbridge ordered, giving into her desire to glare at him for his disrespect to the Minister.
"Of course, of course," Harry replied as he gave her a slight nod before placing the picture back on the desk, though he made sure to place it face down so the picture of Fudge would not be able to see anything. "terribly sorry about that. Anyway, like I said, I have something important to talk to you about."
"Well, what is it?" She asked.
"The fact that you got my sister fired, I really didn't appreciate that." Harry said, holding his hands behind his back as he discreetly pulled his wand out and waved it, causing all the cat pictures to freeze. He wasn't sure if they would be used to spy on people but he didn't really want to risk it.
"You don't have a sister." Professor Umbridge huffed, not noticing the deactivated cat pictures.
"Yes, I do, her name was Tonks." Harry said, glaring at her with narrowed eyes.
"Oh, that metamorph." Umbridge said in a dismissive voice as she gave him a sweet smile. "Nothing happened to her that she didn't deserve." She added, smirking as she did so.
"Let's agree to disagree on that." Harry said before he bent down to look like he was picking up something, once the majority of his body was out of Umbridge's sight thanks to the desk in-between them, he began waving his wand again.
"Potter, what are you doing?" Madam Umbridge demanded to know as she stood up and leaned forwards, "I..." Whatever she was about to say was cut off as Harry swung a magically created bat at her head, after being hit she fell back onto her chair and faded into unconsciousness.
"Get ready for a year in hell, Umbridge." Harry smirked as he got rid of the bat. "Nothing less than you deserve." Harry said before he cast a couple of healing spells on her, he'd much rather not do that but the less evidence he had against him the better. "Obliviate." Harry said in a cold voice as he hit her with a memory charm so she would no longer remember the last couple of minutes, he replaced her memory with a memory of her falling over and then going to sleep at her desk shortly after. Harry had learnt the memory charm from Tonks who knew it thanks to being an auror, he did tell her that he had a good reason for wanting to learn it, he had no doubt she'd approve if she found out how he had used it and how he planned to use it.