Harry Potter gets smart and takes control - The Goblet

Chapter 39 Last Few Things Before Break

There was also a mouthwateringly spicy Christmas scent in the air all the time now. When not hidden away like the introverted hermit he was, Harry had taken to sitting at the end of one of the longhouse tables in the kitchens. It felt homey down there, especially when he was surrounded by elves bake up a storm filling the school with that yummy scent. That and Dobby kept sneaking him bits of Christmas cookie dough and the cookies that turned out slightly less than perfect! Tippy was even kind enough to 'not notice.'

The Hogwarts elves also seemed to delight in Dobby and Winkey being 'Harry's' elves. It seemed the perfect excuse to ignore Dumbledore's hash order in regards to starving Harry whenever they could. They seemed to delight in being able to follow their orders to a T and still aggressively spoil and look after Harry through Dobby and Winky.

Harry was now never without a full stomach and was constantly finding snacks in his bags and extra blankets on his bed. It was a nice change, Dobby and Winkey were excellent, but it was nice to know the Castle elves now has enough wriggle room to sneakily have his back too. Harry could tell that the castle was happy with the change to the status quo as well.

But while the castle was looking nice, Yule Ball fever seemed to have taken over the student population. Harry wasn't sure if he was pleased that they finally had something else to talk about that wasn't him, or irritated by it. He certainly felt he was the only person in the whole castle that was dreading it. He was not at all looking forward to it and had taken to desperately checking the mail each day for word from Rodgrip.

Rumours were flying about the Yule Ball, and Harry was pretty sure at least half of them were false. For instance, Dumbledore had bought eight hundred barrels of mulled mead from Madam Rosmerta. While the man was negligent to the point of criminal, Harry didn't think he'd let his students get drunk, as much as some of them seemed keen on the idea. It did seem to be taken as fact though, that he had booked the Weird Sisters. Harry didn't know who they were, never having had access to a wizard's wireless, but he worked out that they were a very famous musical group.

Despite this, Harry did not feel at all like he was missing out by avoiding the whole thing. In fact, the more he heard about the ball, and the more people that got excited about it, the more he longed to be away from it all. The ball was all anyone could talk about. Thankfully it seemed that Harry wasn't the only one sick of hearing people go about it.

The teacher's too were affected. Some like little Professor Flitwick, gave up trying to teach them much at all, when it was clear they would (almost) all rather be talking about the ball. He allowed them to practice Christmas related charms and various cosmetic charms in his lesson on Wednesday. Harry was very pleased that he managed to sit up the back under a discrete notice-me-not charm, and actually get some work done instead.

Other teachers were not so generous. Nothing would ever deflect Professor Binns, from drowning on about goblin rebellions. Harry figured that if the ghost didn't let a little thing like being dead stop him, he wasn't going to be stopped by something as frivolous as a ball. It was amazing how he could make even bloody and vicious goblin riots sound as boring as Percy's cauldron-bottom report. And really! The whole topic was infuriating! Wizards had treated everyone else so appallingly, throughout history, that it was no wonder the goblins kept rioting. Harry sighed, pulling out one of his mother's history text's instead. Her snarky notes in the margins on various riots were far more interesting.

Professors McGonagall and Moody too, kept them working until the very last second of their classes. Professor Snape, of course, was about as uninterested in the coming holidays as Harry was. Instead, he made them study for a poison & antidotes test during the last lesson of the term. A test Harry had been studying hard for, but knowing Snape's hatred, was worried he'd fail. It was too important a subject to fail though. Not when so many people would be out to get him. He really should make a ring or something he could wear that would detect poisons...