Dear Mr. H. J. Potter,We at the 'Je

Dear Mr. H. J. Potter,

We at the 'Jenks & Jenks' company are honored that you chose us to represent yourself in the legal matters. We suggest a meeting at your convenience to draw up the contract and choose a solicitor that will be the best choice for you.

Sincerely your,

H. N. Jenks]

Harry scratched his head, as he pondered the situation. This was certainly a slight glitch in the scheme he was planning, since couldn't really get out of school until the summer. And waiting until summer was out of question. He thought hard about what to do and then he cackled madly, as he found a way. It was rather tricky, but achievable none the less. He then went through the rest of the presents which mostly were just cards with 'Merry Christmas' wishes until he stopped at the last one. This was just a card as well, but the sender wished him a 'Harry Yule' and it brought a smile on Harry's face.

The next few hours Harry was busy replying to the people who bothered to send him gifts, thinking it was good manners and so on. He also scheduled the meeting with the solicitor on February, 14th and asked to have the meeting somewhere in Hogsmead. He just hoped his plan to let himself into the wizarding village would go smoothly, he was rather impatient to properly pay Dumbledore and the Weasleys back for all the things they did to him. That evening before going to bed Harry put a 'Congelo Praensus'[1] ward around the whole room. Ever since Luna told him about the house elf, he tried to cast it and now he would try and catch the creature.

The next day Harry saw a house elf for the first time in his life. He was faintly surprised, since he wasn't 100% sure that the spell would work because he studied it himself. But soon his attention went to the creature and he curiously looked over the frozen figure. The elf was rather small, its' head would probably be at Harry's knee level. The creature was wearing what appeared to be a pillow case, had absolutely enormous eyes and huge ears. All in all it was a rather funny creature. Finally harry released the ward with a simple 'Finite Incantatum' and watched as the elf stood up and promptly began beating itself on the head with a lamp.

"Stop that at once!" – snapped Harry. He knew the elf was not really obligated to obey him, since he wasn't its' master, but Harry needed to at least know whose elf it was, so he could take the matter up with the owner.

And as commanded, the elf practically froze, lamp still clutched in his small hand. The creature was trembling with its' desire to continue the self-appointed punishment, but the command held true, though Harry had no idea why that was. He glared at the small elf:

"Who are you and why have you been following me around?" – had Harry not known that the elf was his personal stalker, he probably would have made an effort to be more polite but as it was, he didn't give a shit about what the creature would think about him.

"I… be Dobby, Mister Harry Potter, sir… " – came the muttered reply – "I wanting to save Mister Harry Potter sir…"

'Well, this is certainly not helpful…' – thought Harry as he thought about what question best to ask.

"Save from what, Dobby?" – Harry asked, getting slightly frustrated.

"From the great evil master let out…" – with that the elf began wailing about being a bad elf and trying to hit itself with the lamp again.

Harry being slightly more logical then last year asked:

"Did your master plan on this evil happening?"

"N-no… but Dobby still helps Mister Harry Potter sir."- came the sullen reply.

"N-no… but Dobby still helps Mister Harry Potter sir."- came the sullen reply.

Harry relaxed slightly – of course it was bad that someone allowed for this to happen, but since the person didn't plan on this happening, Harry decided not to place blame where it was not needed:

"Does your Master know you've been stalking me?"- Potter asked sternly.

"Dobby not be staling the honorable Mister Harry Potter sir!" – protested the elf and much to Harry's annoyance once more tried to punish itself.

"And your Master is?"

There was silence as Dobby tried to escape answering the question but was not successful. Instead the creature just disappeared with a loud 'CLICK'.


As the holidays came to their end, Harry had already started his plan to enable his meeting with the solicitor to take place. He was brewing the Polijuice Potion. Of course the ingredients were hard to come by and the potion was not something a 12 year old kid could brew without raising suspicion, so Harry had to order quite a lot of extra ingredients to throw off the suspicions. The potion itself had to be brewed for a month, so Harry started as soon as he could and there were still 3 weeks to go. He didn't want anyone to know what he was doing, so he had to learn the 'Abigo Incantatoris'[2] and the 'Invisibilis Spacium'[3] spells to make sure no one would accidentally stumble on the unused classroom that he chose to brew the potion in.

When he met up with his friends he was showered with how their friends spent Christmas. While these tales were not overly interesting, Harry still felt that it was nice of them to share, since Harry himself didn't really know what Christmas was about. Sure he attended the stupid dinner Dumbledore arranged, but he slipped away as soon as he could.

When asked about his own holidays, Harry told them everything. The Weasleys were angry about someone stopping Harry's mail, Neville was on about how politically powerful Harry could be in a few years, Pansy was glad Harry liked his Yule present and Draco was rather pensive for no apparent reason.

"Draco, what's up?" – asked Harry cautiously.

The blond shook off the stun spell his mind was under and glanced at Harry:

"You said you're being followed around by a house elf called Dobby?"

"Yes, why?" – wondered Potter.

"Nothing much probably, but my family does have an elf called Dobby."

"Really?" – exclaimed Harry – "Can you summon him? And if it's the same elf, please order it to stay the hell away from me."

"Sure." – Draco agreed easily and snapped his fingers that caused the elf materialize in front of them.

"Yep, that's the little critter." – Harry said, as he recognized the elf.

"Mister Harry Potter sir…" – whimpered the elf, which made all of Harry's friends snicker at the ridiculous name, which in turn made Harry glare at them.

The next half an hour was spent interrogating the very stubborn elf, but unfortunately either the creature knew close to nothing, or they were asking all the wrong questions. Finally Draco snapped:

"Dobby, from this moment I order you to stay away from Harry Potter! At least 1 mile! Now be gone!"

The elf looked like it was poked in the eyes with a hot iron bat or something, but he vanished none the less.

"Thanks." – sighed Harry gratefully – "at least now I can sleep and shower safely and know that I'm not watched by some creep."

This made all of them shudder in disgust and quickly change the topic of the conversation.


As time went by, Minerva McGonagall made sure to keep an eye on Dumbledore, thus the job of watching Lockhart was passed to Severus, who was only too happy to accept. He sat in on one of Gilderoy's lessons and when he told Minerva about the joke that Lockhart made out of DADA, the deputy headmistress took the issue up to the Governors of Hogwarts and was rather pleased with the outcome. They did not fire the man at once, but they did place him on probation – one more unsatisfactory class and his career as the Hogwarts DADA Professor would come to an untimely end. This was the reason Lockhart had a really hard time preparing lesson plans, after all it's not like he was anything other than a fame hungry writer.

Another pleasant thing was that the Dueling Club was finally started. Since Snape was the one in charge most of the Slytherins attended, while the rest of the students either came because Flitwick would be there so surely Snape wouldn't be too bad, or didn't come at all. Harry & co were among the first to arrive at the huge room to the side of the Great Hall that was used to hold the meeting. Everyone was astounded at the amount of knowledge Snape possessed and the way he spoke about the various curses and jinxes allowed Harry and everyone else to realize that Severus Snape was actually a very good teacher, he simply needed to teach about something that he had true passion for and while he was an excellent Potions Master, DADA & Dark Arts were what the man really loved. Unfortunately in a school controlled by Dumbledore he had no way to get what he wanted, thus he made best of this unexpected chance that was presented to him.

"Now then," – spoke Snape as finally the theoretical part seemed to be over – "You will divide yourselves into groups of five people each and practice. The spells we're going today are: 'Rapidus Caecitas'[4], 'Tego'[5] and 'Vincio'[6]. The first one is an offensive hex that will blind your opponent for at least 10 minutes depending on the magical strength of the caster. The counter is 'Dono Adspectus'[7]. The next one is a protective ward. Unlike the 'Protego' spell that you all should already be familiar with, 'Tego' will be active until you cancel the spell yourself, but it is a constant drain on your magical core, so it can't be maintained for long. I'd actually recommend to only use it in emergencies, as it can even stop physical attack, not just magical ones. The last spell is the 'Vincio' jinx and it is quite similar in effect to spells like 'Mobilicorpus' & 'Petrificus Totalus', however it does not require as much power and concentration as the other two. The 'Rapidus Caecitas' and its' counter will be practiced on rats, since an incorrectly cast hex can completely and permanently blind an opponent. Now in a real fight that might not be a big problem, but since we're here for learning purposes only, both Professor Flitwick and I feel it better if you do not attem