“Harry! You got a minute?” Fred asked. The twins had forgiven them for making them lose the marauders map, joking that getting to know the pranking master Sirius was a good enough trade. They still practically worshiped him and excitedly told Sirius about all the pranks they pulled off at school.

Things were going well for the first month of Harry’s fifth year. Ron had finally apologized for his actions last year and Hermione had tentatively forgiven him. Neville seemed relieved that the drama seemed to be mostly over between them. Harry was still sleeping in the Chamber though, and training with Salazar in magic.

Harry let himself be dragged into an abandoned classroom by Fred and George.

“So, Harry,” Fred began, “My brother and I have an excellent idea. You know that flask Mad-eye Moody always carries at his hip?”

Harry nodded, the man didn’t drink out of anything else due to his paranoia of being poisoned by someone.

“We know you’re not exactly into the pranking scene,” George continued, “But you’re just the man to help us out!”

“You want to prank Mad-eye?” Harry asked, “Weren’t you intimidated of him last year? What’s changed?”

Fred shook his head, “That’s why it's perfect, mate! We can’t keep going for low hanging fruit, we have to up the game and the risk to bring our pranking to the next level!”

“So what is it? What would I have to do?” Harry asked.

“We just need you to cause a distraction in the hallways. We’ll be swiping his flask and filling it with lemon juice in the meantime. Imagine his face when he goes for another swig! We’ll lock his office for a day too so he’ll have to either drink something else at the great hall or drink more of that sour lemon juice.”

Harry imagined it.

Heh.

“Okay, what should I do?” Harry asked.

“That’s up to you,” George said, “But we will help you. We just need him to focus totally on you for a minute or two. You always ask the strangest questions to people. What’s something that would make him uncomfortable and throw him off balance?”

Harry tilted his head to the side and considered.

“Let’s see… I could ask about any nasty spells he knows. No, too illegal,” Fred and George raised their brows and shared a glance as Harry continued, “And he wouldn’t tell me anyway… Nothing from the class material would be enough. He’s too paranoid for personal questions. Oh, I’ve got it! Human reproduction! That would throw him off.”

Fred and George chuckled reflexively, “What?” George said, “You’re going to ask him about girls? Would that even work?”

Harry blinked, “Well, I don’t think he would care about my personal questions about my preferences. But I was thinking about what would happen if someone transfigured into the opposite gender. Could they still have children while they were like that? With his experience as an Auror, he might know the answer.”

Fred and George went a little green, “Merlin, Harry,” Fred said, “Never make me think about that again. So gross. But that would definitely throw him off.”

“Are you sure you want to ask that in public?” George said, “That was a bit more than what we were thinking…”

“It is fine,” Harry replied, “I’m sure others have wondered about it also. And him drinking lemon juice does sound rather funny.”

“Well, if you’re sure…” Fred said.

— — —

“Professor! I have a quick question I was hoping you could answer,” Harry said in the hallway as he spotted Mad-eye walking with his staff clicking on the stone floor. Fred and George had set up the ambush and told Harry where to wait to make this happen.

The man turned around and his face twisted slightly into a frown, “Potter? I’m not in class right now. Why didn’t you ask your questions then?”

“It doesn’t have to do with the class actually,” Harry said, “It was just a question based on your experiences as an Auror.”

Moody seemed skeptical but fully turned around to face Harry. Harry saw the twins approaching from the opposite direction trying to look casual. They would cast the spells to change the contents of the flask as they walked by while Moody was distracted.

“Well, out with it boy,” Moody said irritably, “What is it already? I don’t have all day.”

“Ah, it's regarding transfiguring a person. If someone is transfigured into the opposite gender then can they reproduce and have a child in that form?”

Moody paused and appeared shocked for a moment before laughing.

“Ah, I suppose none of the rest of the prudes in the teaching staff would tell you?”

Harry shook his head. They really hadn’t.

“Well, the answer is no,” Moody said as Fred and George walked by. Harry saw them flick their wands and mutter something before continuing to walk past like nothing had happened.

“Just like objects revert after being transfigured after enough time, so do people,” Moody continued, “So anything that fell off the main mass of the person would revert to its original form after a little while. Including the little bits that create the baby. That’s one of the reasons why polyjuice potion is so valued and restricted by the ministry. It is more real and everything related to the person even their blood and hair remains identical to the copied person until it wears off. So if someone using the Polyjuice gets someone pregnant, then the child would have the blood of whoever they were impersonating. That answer your question, Potter?”

“Yes, Professor,” Harry answered, “Thank you.”

And with that they went their separate ways.

— — —

In the great hall, Moody took the flask off of his hip and took a gulp. He froze as a sour taste hit his lips and his face scrunched up in distaste. What… he looked down into the flask and to his horror saw that the fluid in there was yellow.

His polyjuice potion had been vanished! Was this a prank? Did any of these brats know what they had done! How valuable that potion had been! He rapidly stood to his feet and left in a hurry to his quarters. He had a larger supply in there, but he had to get there fast.

He only had twenty minutes or so until the polyjuice potion wore off and returned him to his natural form. Since he was living transformed all this time it was more efficient to take many smaller doses over the course of the day rather than one larger one in the morning.

Hence the flask he carried around with him at all times. It was lucky for him that Moody had been so paranoid and so he had a plausible excuse to always carry the flask around with him.

He reached the door to his quarters and tried to open it. But it was stuck closed. He tried several spells to make it budge, but nothing worked. He leaned forward and inspected the crack in the door. Sure enough, there it was. The signature glow of a permanent sticking charm. It would take him an hour or more to undo this and get inside where he had stashed the polyjuice potion. He had stupidly reinforced the door enough that he would be unable to batter down the door in time either.

Barty Crouch Junior, loyal servant of Lord Voldemort, stared at the door in frustration. All his work teaching these brats magic, placing himself in a position of influence for the next generation… all wasted. He had no more time, he had to escape before he was found out. He would have to find another way to serve the dark lord.

Barty Crouch Junior rushed at full speed towards Hogsmeade ignoring the confused looks of the brats around him. He reached the border and entered the town and let out a sigh of relief as he apparated away. Five minutes later the potion wore off and Moody’s body began to warp and shift. He groaned as his leg and missing eye regenerated as he returned to his true form. A black haired thin man in his thirties. The enchanted eye popped out from the socket and the peg leg fell off as he stood.

After so long with no news, Barty Crouch Junior would have to find the Dark Lord again and report his failure. He didn’t know why the Dark Lord had called so many of his followers to him away from the public eye all at once, but it was not his duty to understand. He had to find his lord and report his failure in his mission before his absence from Hogwarts was fully investigated.

— — —

“...Did you hear the news?” Ron said, “Mad-eye was an imposter the whole time. He was some escaped death eater using the polyjuice potion. The real Moody was locked up in his office so he could use him to make more polyjuice for his form.”

“No wonder he was always so attached to his flask,” Hermione added, “He was taking polyjuice potion the whole time.”

Fred and George had reported their prank to the Aurors after they learned what had happened. Luckily they had left Harry’s name out of it, so he wouldn’t have to deal with any more nonsense from the papers.

— — —

Harry sat in the defense against the dark arts classroom waiting along with everyone else for their new teacher to arrive. It was someone from the Ministry, and apparently McGonagall was upset that the ministry had forced McGonagall to hire her after she couldn’t find any other candidates for the job.

There was a large stack of books in the back of the room piled nearly to the ceiling and Harry stared at them curiously wondering what they were there for.

After a few minutes, a squat toad looking woman dressed in all pink came through the doors to the front of the room. All the students quieted down as she stood there and inspected them for a moment in silence. They were used to Mad-eye, well Mad-eye’s imposter, having no tolerance for any disrespect or speaking out of turn.

“Hem, hem,” the woman coughed in a clearly fake high pitched tone.

“My name is Dolores Umbridge and I will be your new Defense against the Dark arts professor," She said, "Now, I’ve heard about all of the rather nasty things that the imposter was allowed to teach you,” she said in a sickly sweet tone. Harry wasn’t sure why he immediately was disliking her, but something about her just irritated him as she spoke.

“I assure you, that we will learn nothing like that!” She continued, seeming horrified by the very idea, “Instead, we will be following a safe, ministry approved, curriculum that will teach you everything you need to know for your exams.”

She turned around and started floating stacks of books that were distributed to all of the students.

“The minister has made a special exception to allow all the students access to these textbooks for free! The Minister was very concerned about your education or lack of it. So feel grateful for his generosity, children!”

Harry eyed the copy of ‘Defensive Magical Theory’ on his desk. The cover was rather cartoonish with bright colors and almost looked like a child's book. It didn’t give him high hopes for the contents inside.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

In the magical world, it was easy to copy books in their entirety if one was already the owner. The only reason their school books weren’t almost free already was because the publishers spent most of their efforts preventing such copying efforts with inbuild enchantments or spells. Harry was sure that the Ministry had produced these books at nearly no cost to them. Well, that's only assuming that they...

Harry took out a blank piece of parchment and used a basic copying spell to transfer the image on the cover onto it. It worked easily without even a hitch. Harry inspected the parchment and the image was transferred in its entirety. This book didn’t have even a single anti-copying charm and the ministry could probably produce thousands of these for only the cost of the paper they were made of.

“Mr. Potter? What do you think you are doing?” Professor Umbridge said sharply. Harry looked up and saw she was standing in front of him looking down at the page he had just copied, frowning.

“Sorry, Professor,” Harry said, “I was just testing a theory. My book doesn’t have any anti-copying charms on it. I was wondering how the ministry could afford so many for us, but I’m sure this made it much cheaper.”

Umbridge spluttered, “Why, that’s ridiculous! How dare you try to dismiss the minister’s contributions to this school, Mr. Potter! You should be grateful he has done so much for you.”

Harry furrowed his brow slightly in confusion. Had she not understood him?

“I’m grateful,” Harry told her, “It’s smart, we get the books and he doesn’t pay as much. I’m sure the big publishers will be angry at him though. If anything, all books should be made like this. Our books would practically be free if there weren’t anti-copying charms on everything we buy.”

Umbridge puffed up and turned away, seeming unamused by Harry’s response, “Such concerns are not for the ears of children,” she huffed, “Leave such things to Minister Fudge. Now, start reading chapter one of the textbook, class. Now!”

There was some grumbling, but no one stepped out of line yet and just started reading. Harry was a naturally quick reader. He had two ‘modes’ if you will. The fast way was for him to stare for a few seconds at a page before flipping to the next. He wouldn’t fully understand it, but he could have it in his mind and could mentally ‘flip’ to that page and read off of it.

Then there was his actual reading pace, which was slower but still quick compared to most others after all his practice reading nonstop for the last few years. Harry chose to go through the slower and deeper method as he read through the book.

By the time the others had finished the single chapter Harry was at chapter six, with about thirty chapters total in the whole book. Harry was frowning as he continued to read.

This book… was horrible. Objectively terrible explanations of the limitations and uses of a spell, spell diagrams that were flat out wrong. The third chapter didn’t even have any spells in it. It was just one long rant by the author about how horrible dark magic was and how it was to blame for all problems in wizarding society. Something also verifiably untrue. All the spells were rather simple and something that could be learned by fifth years in a few minutes each if Ron and Neville were a good metric to go by.

By the end of class Umbridge had still not done anything but patrol the room and make sure they were still reading the text. Harry could see that many of the students were bored and only pretending to read by this point. Many others had probably also realized how useless it was.

Harry kept reading and made it halfway through to chapter fourteen before closing and putting it down flat on his desk. This wasn’t worth his time, he should just go and help Mind Harry with the mindscape some more…

“Mr. Potter? Why have you stopped reading?” Umbridge asked him.

Harry had been enjoying the view of his mindscape a lot. Gah.

“I have finished the first chapter,” Harry replied, “And continued to chapter fourteen.”

“Well, keep reading if you have gone so far,” Umbridge said, “I’ve heard of your memory, I’m sure you’ll have mastered it soon.”

Harry shook his head, “I shouldn’t bother. Do you know when the second edition is coming out? This one is riddled with fairly obvious mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” Umbridge said with a more hostile tone, “This is ministry approved! There are no mistakes there. It contains everything you need for your tests.”

Harry flipped to one of the worst examples of the spell diagrams in the book so far.

“I disagree, Professor,” Harry said, “Look at this spell diagram on page thirty seven. This portion is completely backward, the upper right quadrant is rotated forty five degrees from what it should be. This whole bottom section isn’t even part of the right spell. If the book didn’t label it then I would have no idea what spell it is trying to be. Even the best ones in this book have at least a few mistakes that need to be fixed. But its only the first edition after all and it actually wasn't so bad for the first chapter or two, so we should have some time to receive the corrected ones.”

Umbridge’s face was turning red and she was breathing heavier as she stared at Harry in seeming anger. Harry was confused, didn’t she want to have better books? What had he said wrong? The whole class was staring at them now, looking between them and the diagrams in their books.

“Blimey, you’re right Harry!” Ron said, “The diagram on this page is garbage!”

“Silence! Detention, Mr. Potter!” She shouted, “I will not have such disrespect in my classroom. Report to my office at five o'clock. Class, continue reading. You will learn from this book, it has everything you need inside. It is ministry approved, and any complaints you may have are completely unfounded.”

Harry glanced at Hermione and Ron who looked like they were about to protest. Umbridge walked back to the front without waiting for Harry’s response. There was some muttering from the students and angry glances shot at Umbridge. Harry was unsure what he had said to make her give him detention. Did she like this book so much? He flipped to the front and looked at the authors page. Oh, there it was.

Edited by Dolores Umbridge.

Wow, she should be embarrassed. She might be even worse at magic than Lockhart if this was what she thought was the magic they needed. At least Lockhart had been good at memory spells from what Harry’s friends had told him, so he was talented in at least one branch of magic. Harry finished reading the textbook and had Mind Harry create a thousand copies in the mindscape.

In transfiguration class he had fun watching as Mind Harry found all sorts of unique ways to destroy the books. Thrown into the void, burned, torn in half, fed to a flock of coatls… at least the book was useful for something. Harry would feel bad destroying any other book like this. But this one deserved it.

For fun Mind Harry began copying some of the terrible spell diagrams and putting them on the very outer layers of the mindscape with words in giant bold letters below. ‘Created by Dolores Umbridge’.

“Harry, why are you smiling?” Hermione asked him as they left their class.

“Nothing,” Harry said, “Just put something funny in mindscape.”

Hermione was trying to learn occlumency as well, but she was still looking for the correct environment for her mindscape. Harry couldn’t imagine how long it must take most people considering how long it had taken even him working at full efficiency.

— — —

It was time for Harry’s detention with Umbridge. He walked into her office which was completely covered in pink and fluffy objects. She had little plates hanging on her wall with moving images of various cats. Dolores Umbridge sat behind her desk looking rather smug for someone who was clearly an incompetent editor.

“Mr. Potter,” she began in her high pitched voice, “I’m sure you are used to all sorts of special treatment as the resident half-blood genius.” Harry frowned. Why was she saying it like that? Was she a blood purist?

“But you can not disrespect me, or the teaching materials that the Minister has so kindly provided you,” She said, “So today, I’m having you write some lines.”

“That’s fine,” Harry said, “Are you going to be the editor on the second edition though? Clearly you are not experienced and they should hire a professional for this. I’m sure you were too busy preparing to be a teacher to do your editing work properly at the same time.”

Her face flushed and she looked like she might yell at him, but then she simply schooled her expression and gave him a nasty smile.

“Sit down, Mr. Potter. I see that you feel no remorse. In the coming days I think I will be forced to let the message sink in a bit more. ‘I must not tell lies’ is what your line will be for today. Appropriate, don’t you think?”

Harry sat down and reached into his bag and took out the parchment and quill.

“Ah, ah,” Umbridge scolded Harry lightly, “You’ll be writing it with a very special quill of mine.”

She took the quill out of her desk, its shaft inky black and the feather gray. Harry accepted it for her and inspected it for a moment. What was so special about it?

“Do you have any ink?” Harry asked cautiously. There didn’t appear to be an inkwell nearby that he could use to refill the quill.

“You won’t need any,” Umbridge said with a sickly sweet tone. She stood and walked around her desk so she was standing slightly behind Harry to watch as he wrote with her eyes strangely eager as they flicked between his hand with the quill and his face.

“Well, get to it,” she urged him. After some indecision, Harry shrugged and started writing on the parchment. ‘I must not tell lies’. The quill spit out some dullish red ink. Harry was about to write again when he felt a sharp pain on his left hand like something carving into his skin. ‘I must not tell lies’, slowly scrawled itself there in Harry’s handwriting like a knife being slid against the back of his hand.

Harry stopped and inspected the wounds closely. Fascinating. Painful, but fascinating. This was a very complex and unique enchantment and he had never heard of anything like it before in the books he had read.

Harry turned around and saw that Umbridge was smiling broadly at him, a malicious glint in her eyes as she watched him.

“Well, Mr. Potter. What are you waiting for? Keep writing,” She said with obvious delight as her eyes flickered between his injured and bleeding hand and the parchment.

Harry got a brilliant idea as they continued to stare at each other for a few seconds and smiled back at her. Still maintaining eye contact with her, he took the quill she gave him and slid it into the pockets of his robes. Then he shook his head as if confused and took his hand out of his pocket, keeping up his smile up as he did so.

“But Professor Umbridge, I’ve got no quill to write with,” he said.

She reeled back stunned as Harry stared back at her with a neutral expression and dropped the smile. He spread his hands as if to show her that they were empty.

“I- You arrogant little! Give me back my quill!” Umbridge screamed, looking like she might jump forward and throttle him. Harry slid one hand back into his robes and gripped his wand just in case.

“What quill, Professor?” Harry asked blandly, “Are you feeling alright? I think you are imagining things.”

“The quill I just gave you you little ingrate!” she screamed, “Do you even have any ideas how many galleons that cost me?”

Harry drew out the quill from his pocket with his free hand and inspected it briefly.

“Is this the quill you are talking about?” Harry asked.

“Yes! What are you playing at!” she said in frustration.

“This is mine,” Harry stated brazenly, “It is rude to steal things, Professor. Especially from a student. You can buy yourself a nice quill if you want to, don’t take mine.”

She blinked a few times before her eyes narrowed at him.

“You thief! You think the minister will stand for this? Stealing from a teacher? You’ll be expelled!”

“But Professor,” Harry replied calmly, “This quill hurts the person who writes with it. If it was yours then that means you were trying to hurt me. Why else would I have it while we were writing lines? And I don’t appreciate your unfounded accusations against me of stealing. I suppose I will use my other quill for your lines if you dislike this one so much.”

Harry put the special quill away and drew out a normal one.

“So, do you have any ink?” Harry asked the fuming Umbridge expectantly. She looked like she was about to explode in impotent rage, but she couldn’t do anything to him right now. It was clear that she hadn’t expected that he would dare be so bold. Her hostility with Harry had been immediate, way out of proportion of the comments he had made and If she was using cruel devices like the blood quill from the start then Harry didn’t think he was ever going to be on her good side. So it was probably best to get the most he could out of this while ignoring what her opinion of him would be.

After a short staring contest, Umbridge gritted her teeth but backed down but walked around her desk. “Here!” she said, shoving a little bottle of ink at him. Harry dipped his normal quill in and looked to her.

“How many lines am I doing?” he asked.

“Two thousand,” she spat out with venom.

Harry nodded and started writing. Body Harry joined Mind Harry in the mindspace to help out, only keeping a little attention on their body to keep it writing the lines. Together they had fun designing one of the most cramped uncomfortable apartments and putting a wax replica of Umbridge squished up in there. Harry was really beginning to not like her. Was their hate mutual? Harry had immediately disliked her just as much as she had seemed to immediately dislike him. Something to think about.

Body Harry checked in and refocused on the body and it had almost finished fifteen hundred lines. Its hands were aching and Umbridge seemed irritated at Harry’s apparently intense focus on his task while completely ignoring her.

Body Harry joined Mind Harry and sat side by side and stared into the mindspace. The twisting reality bending view of the city never got old, and Body Harry watched as a flock of Coatls twisted and erratically beat their wings to navigate together though all the invisible regions of gravity pointing in different directions. He knew they were only preprogrammed constructs, but their movements still looked so alive.

“Never gets old Body Harry, does it,” Mind Harry said.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Body Harry replied.

Harry finished his lines and shook out his hand. It wasn’t crazy talking to yourself if you had a second body, right? That sounded right to him. Body Harry sank back into the real world and Harry focused on the frustrated Umbridge.

“Very well, I will take your lines as evidence of your work,” she eventually said. Harry almost complied before pausing and leaning down and writing one more line with his quill. Then he went back and ripped off the segment that had used blood quill to put his blood on the page. He definitely didn’t want to give Umbridge access to his blood.

“There,” Harry said before incinerating the part with his blood with a quick spell. He handed her the filled parchment and she was hesitant as she realized he had found out her ploy. He cast a quick healing spell, healing the wounds on his hand from the blood quill.

“Very well, Mr. Potter,” Umbridge said with some reluctance, “I will see you tomorrow for your detention. I see you are not repentant, so I expect you to have this for a long time.”

“Whatever you say, Professor,” Harry replied before turning around and leaving the room. It had been about two hours and he had nearly missed dinner. He hurried to get there before the place closed.

He was hungry.

He would worry about all the other detentions he would be attending later after he got some food.