The death eaters in the room were all sat quietly at the table, Lord Voldemort was sat on one end of the table and was reading the latest edition of the daily prophet. The rest of them had already been made aware about the contents of the newspaper, apparently Harry Potter had embarrassed and undermined the ministry in their latest attempt to gain more control over Hogwarts. A great many of them expected their lord to be upset or furious at the failure, given that he wanted to weaken Dumbledore, but those in the know realised that Dumbledore was not the only person that the dark lord was interested in.
"How amusing." Voldemort chuckled after reading the newspaper. "the boy continue to impresses me."
"My Lord," One death eater spoke up. "forgive me, but does it not concern you that the boy is counteracting so many of the ministry's plans? That will make our own plans much more difficult after all."
"Plans can be changed," Voldemort said dismissively. "the mark of a great leader is not the ability to produce plans, but to adapt his plans. If needed, we will adapt. Fortunately, that is not yet needed."
"My Lord," Another death eater spoke up. "the Potter boy grows more powerful each day. Two of my nephews go to Hogwarts, one is a sixth year and the other is a third year. The first tells me that the older students won't act against Potter while the other tells me that Potter is known as the 'Silver King of Slytherin'."
"Such lovely titles he collects." Voldemort chuckled. "Is there any other information about Potter that any of you would like to inform me about?"
"My Lord," A death eater spoke up. "my youngest, she is still in Hogwarts. She has told me that Potter has begun teaching the other students."
"Teaching?" Voldemort repeated in an interested voice.
"Yes, my lord." The death eater nodded.
"Lucius's son and my boy have confirmed the same thing." Nott spoke up.
"It is true," Lucius nodded. "they tell us that Potter is openly holding 'classes' and nearly every student in Hogwarts tries to attend. According to my son, Potter is teaching them not just spells, but also magical theory and the different types of magic, explaining to them what dark magic truly is. It is my belief that it was Potter's open classes that prompted Umbridge to produce her latest decree, though we all know how well that worked out." He said, gesturing to the newspaper.
"Indeed." Voldemort said with a light laugh.
"My-my lord," One nervous death eater spoke up. "do you still wish for us to recruit Potter? I-I do not mean to question you, but it just seems like Potter is far more trouble than he is worth." Voldemort stiffened in an almost unnoticeable way, he took a moment to squash down his desire to curse the stupid death eater for his stupid question.
"Tell me, what were you doing at the age of fifteen?" Voldemort asked, the death eater wisely did not answer as it was clear that that was not a question that Voldemort wanted to actually be answered. "I do not know, nor do I care. I find it hard to believe that you were doing anything beyond wasting your parent's money and becoming intimately familiar with your right hand. Harry Potter, at the age of fifteen, is going to battle against the ministry and is already recruiting other students. The boy is powerful, rich, resourceful, intelligent, has mastered magic far beyond his years and possesses the noble gift of Salazar Slytherin himself, yet you ask if I still want him on my side?" Voldemort asked, looking at the death eater like he was an unintelligent bug who kept flying into the same wall over and over.
The death eater visibly wilted under his gaze, and thanked his lucky stars that he wasn't getting punished. It was only his desire to remain unpunished that stopped him from pointing out that he was actually left handed.
Harry silently sat in Professor Umbridge's class, dutifully placing all of his attention on reading the book in front of him, looking like it was the most interesting thing that he had ever read. It might have helped that he wasn't actually reading that dreadfully boring and stupid book that Umbridge had assigned and was actually reading a book from Salazar's library, one which had its cover magically changed to make it look like Umbridge's book.
When he wasn't focusing on the material in front of him, his thoughts drifted to various things. One thing that he kept thinking about was Thor who had gone from the size of a budgie to a cockatoo. Harry was glad that the young thunderbird was starting to grow, another thing that Harry thought about was his recruitment of other students. So far it was all going rather well, he had been able to get more and more interested students and he could see the younger students looking at him like he was an actual teacher while the older students looked at him with respect. He had Angela, Tracey and Daphne also helping him on that side.
Harry was also receiving help in recruiting from other houses, firstly Cedric Diggory was helping him recruit from Hufflepuff. The boy was still quite popular in the house of badgers and believed Harry when he said that you-know-who was back, he was also very grateful that Harry took the cup and faced Voldemort instead of him. In Ravenclaw Cho Chang, who was Cedric's girlfriend, helped recruit members of her house partly for her boyfriend and partly to thank Harry. Gryffindor was naturally more difficult given that the majority of the house had some problem or another with Slytherin's but Harry was thankfully able to get some support from the three Gryffindor chasers, who like Cedric and Cho, were popular in their own houses.
'I slept with them AND they help me recruit an army, I really got lucky there.' He thought to himself.
He had also had sent letters to the Tonks family and Lord Black and asked them to provide him with two lists, the first being a list of students with death eater family members and a second list of students that had family that worked for the ministry. The last thing that Harry wanted to do was have his army cut off before it could properly begin because he wasn't smart enough when recruiting. Harry knew that a great many students (especially in his own house) were related to death eaters. Harry was willing to give out a chance to all of them, but he wasn't willing to be stupid about it. No, Harry had plans and back up plans. He even had escape plans in case they became necessary, and he had a feeling that one day they might.
Harry also had Angela look for a place to train the other students in secret, he wasn't really willing to take them down to the chamber for a great many reasons.
"I'm glad to see you're all behaving." Professor Umbridge said from behind her desk, an unsettling smile on her face.
Harry barely hid a smirk, he still found it hard to believe that this toad really thought that things were even somewhat going her way. Harry knew that she was attempting to recruit as many students as possible to Fudge's side, he also knew how well it was going, thankfully for him it was going about as well as Snape's love life. She tried to recruit but pretty much all of the teachers hated her for one reason or another and she was known to hate those who were not pure-blooded so lost a great amount of support from the rest of the school.
The majority of her support would have likely have come from Slytherin, given that it had a great amount of purebloods, except they weren't willing to play ball with her given that she was on the opposite side of Harry, and there weren't many in the house of snakes that were willing to challenge Harry. Plus Umbridge's 'wonderful' personality meant that less people wanted anything to do with her.
"It is good to see you act like model students," Umbridge spoke again. "all you need to do is do as your told. There is no need to make noise and argue and do anything beyond read your books, to do otherwise would make you troublemakers. The last thing this world needs or will continue to have are trouble makers and liars." She said, purposefully focusing her gaze on Harry. Harry didn't even bother looking up from his book, honestly he had had worse insults back when living with the Dursley's. Umbridge looked quite put out at the lack of reaction and returned her focus back to her work for a brief few moments before she looked up at Harry. "Mr Potter," She said suddenly. "detention." She said, finally causing Harry to look up.
"Detention?" Harry asked, his voice was both amused and questioning. The whole class was now looking between him and Umbridge. "Whatever for? As far as I'm aware I have not broken any school rules, as a matter of fact I have been quietly reading my book."
"Your detention is for your poor posture." Umbridge said, gesturing to Harry who was leaning back comfortably in his chair.
"Really?" Harry drawled out, making the word as long as he could. 'Honestly, poor posture, she must be desperate to get me in trouble'. He thought.
"Yes, I think that -"
"Really?" Harry repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"Do you have a problem with my punishment, Mr Potter?" Umbridge asked in a challenging voice. "I am the High inquisitor and therefore have final authority on all punishments, you have not forgotten that, have you?"
"Not really, though I am rather curious about why I am the only one who is being punished for 'poor posture'." Harry said before he gestured to Ron who was slumped over his desk with his arms crossed and his head resting in his arms.
"I-"
"Excuse me, Professor," Daphne spoke as she raised her hand. "I believe my posture was not entirely perfect either." She said as she straightened up slightly.
"Professor," Tracey raised her hand. "how do we know if our posture is good enough?" She asked, seemingly genuine. Daphne and Tracey's words may as well have been calls to battle as the entire classroom began bombarding Umbridge with questions about posture.
"Enough, I-enough! Be quiet!" Umbridge snapped, though her words appeared to have no effect as the classroom continued talking.
Harry smirked at how uncomfortable Umbridge looked now that she no longer had control of the class. What Umbridge failed to realise was that the majority of the school did believe Harry when he said Voldemort had returned, and were therefore not amused to say the least when it came to Umbridge's 'deny, deny and no fucking way are we not denying that' tactic. Not to mention Umbridge's own recruitment attempts were going as well as her attempts to look human. It also seemed lost on her that her extreme denials and targeting of Harry was actually convincing a few people that the ministry was trying to hide something.
"Guys," Harry called after several seconds, he had barely raised his voice yet the entire class had become quiet, "let's calm down now." He said with a small smile, his voice calm and gentle. "I'm sure that the poor Professor is simply mistaken."
"I beg your pardon, Mr Potter?" Umbridge said, looking at him with disbelief.
"Your position as high inquisitor does come with many benefits, that is not something that can be argued against, however something that I can protest against is the reasoning for your detention." Harry spoke in an almost bored tone, a lazy smile on his face. "You have claimed that poor posture is the reason for my punishment, fortunately for me that is not something that can be punished according to ministry or Hogwarts rules. You may oversee all punishments and punish students for breaking rules, unfortunately you are not yet able to hand out punishments for breaking rules that do not officially exist, as that is a great abuse of your power and position. You could, of course, argue that I was disrespectful but I have so far been very polite in all of my questioning, as these many witnesses around me will confirm. So I, and the rest of the people in this classroom, have broken no rules, unless there is a new decree I am unaware of that forbids bad posture." Harry said, raising an eyebrow. "So, would I be correct in guessing that the detention you assigned is cancelled?" Harry asked in a polite voice.
Umbridge's jaw tightened as she looked around at the classroom, seeing not even a small bit of support from any of the students, not even the pureblood students or those who had family that worked in the ministry. It had become clear to her that Potter was more troublesome than she had originally believed, 'the brat has managed to turn nearly all of the students against me and the ministry' she thought to herself, not quite realising that she was greatly part of the reason why the students had turned away from the ministry.
"Of course, Mr Potter, your punishment is cancelled." She said, forcing a smile on her face. Her teeth grinded against each other so hard that it looked like they were going to turn into dust.
"Wow, she's getting desperate." Tracey said as the group walked out of Umbridge's class.
"She's past desperate." Blaise snorted.
"Harry," Angela said as she walked over and began walking alongside the group. "I did what you asked and I found a perfect spot." She said in a pleased voice.
"Really?" Harry grinned at her.
"Oh yeah, you'll love it." Angela grinned.
"Great," Harry said before turning to Jet. "looks like the plan is going to move forward faster than I thought."
"Yes, that is good news. But just remember that if the plan goes wrong then there is always 'Plan B'." Jet replied
"That's the one where you strangle her to death, right?"
"No, it's the one where you strangle her to death. I'm not touching her." Jet replied.
Omake (idea from avidnarutofan):
"So Jet," Harry spoke, trying to seem casual. "you just won the triwizard tournament."
"Yep." Jet said proudly.
"You also managed to gain a little snake harem as you did so." Harry added, as he gestured to the several snakes surrounding Jet.
"Yes I did, my harem's bigger than yours now." He said with a snake grin.
"Lovely," Harry said in a dry voice. "here's the thing, I got to go fight Voldemort in an hour and I know how you won the tournament and I could really use the same help."
"I...don't know what you're talking about." Jet said quietly. Harry gave him a hard and long stare. "Fine." Jet sighed, before pulling out a bottle of luck potion. "just bring it back once you're done, I'm going to meet a cute looking runespoor later and am hoping to have a threesome."
A.N: Hi guys, hope you liked the chapter and I hope that avidnarutofan likes the omake I made, and no, I will not make omakes for each and every one of you, I'd be here all day. The next chapter will have the start of Harry's army, hope you look forward to that, please feel free to give me names for the army since I'm not calling it Dumbledore's army.
Also, a random question, if you guys had to assign a song for this version of Harry then what would it be? For example, 'hall of fame by the script' or 'I will not bow' by breaking benjamin.
Thanks for reading, feel free to leave a review.