After dinner, Harry made his way to the Headmaster's office. He found Professor McGonagall waiting for by the stone gargoyle.
"I'm rather disappointed with you, Mr Potter. While I would not agree with Professor Snape in the Great Hall this is not the kind of thing the Weasley twins would be involved with as they are included in the prank also. This leaves you is the only remaining suspect." stated the professor. "Your disruption of the returning feast is not appreciated."
"I'm sorry you feel that way, professor," Harry said with a shrug. "We were just trying to show how all three schools could get along."
"I don't understand how you feel that this prank makes this possible, Mr Potter."
Harry grinned. "Well we had students from Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons all included in creating the cards. Fleur did makeup and costumes, Al did the photography, and Victor helped insert create the cards."
"And what did Hogwarts provide?" Now Harry's grin threatened to erupt off his face.
"Why, our models of course," Harry said with a laugh. "Fred and George learned a very valuable lesson that night."
"And what lesson would that be, Mr Potter?" McGonagall asked.
"Never get drunk and pass out at the house of a Marauder," Harry said with a cheeky grin. The Transfiguration professor's lips twitched as she fought back a smile. Like his father Harry had always been a favourite of hers. As a professional teacher she knew she really shouldn't have favourites but there was something special about the Potter boys. Not that you ever tell them she found their antics amusing.
"Yes well… We still cannot have students acting disrespectful of our professors, especially in front of our foreign visitors. You will have to serve detention, Mr Potter. Now come with me. I shall do my best to get professor Snape calmed down and prevent you from getting detention through the rest of the year." The stern professor turned and led Harry up the stairs to the Headmaster's office.
....
The term started rather quietly after that. Harry received several detentions for the prank at the returning feast. The five detentions were assigned to Filch rather than Snape. Harry chose to see this as the lesser of two evils. He still had to clean filthy, disgusting objects for the caretaker but at least he didn't have to listen to the foul potions master say things about his father at the same time.
Having spent the summer with Sirius and Remus, Harry now knew all about the rivalry between the Marauders and Snape. The boys despised each other from the first day of their first year at Hogwarts. Both sides went way out of bounds to embarrass, injure, and humiliate the other. Where the Marauders used pranks to embarrass Snape used his potions skills and information gathered by other Slytherins in attempts to send the Marauders to the hospital wing or have them expelled. Lily Evans may have been the biggest point of contention between them but not the only one. Remus reckoned that Snape hated James and Sirius for being purebloods and "blood-traitors" while Snape was a half blood that wanted nothing more to be a pureblood and away from the Muggle world.
Yet even knowing the history and Remus is speculation didn't justify the potions professor's treatment of the non-Slytherin students particularly Harry. Blaming a boy with no conscious memory of meeting his father for that father's actions while in school himself was ridiculous. At times Harry was tempted to introduce the foul git to the Beast.
Three days after the students returned to Hogwarts, Professor Moody announced the first of the duelling club meetings. The duelling club would be divided into an upper half made up of the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh year students. The lower half would have the rest of the school. To Harry's relief, Snape would be helping the upper half while Flitwick would be working with the lower half.
With the help of the house elves Moody created a duelling area out of two unused classrooms. The wall between the rooms was removed and three platforms were installed along with bleachers and shields to protect spectators.
Harry and his friends filtered into the new duelling arena along with the rest of the lower half students. Many of the students were excited about the new club but they were all rather nervous about Professor Moody teaching the class.
"I bet old Mad-Eye has us doing something out of Auror training," Ron said in an excited voice.
"Really, Ron?" Ernie asked with a straight face. "Is that anything like the troll you assured us we would have to wrestle to get sorted back in first year?" Ron started making sounds of denial while his ears turned red with embarrassment. It didn't help when his Slytherin girlfriend noticed.
"Oh I love it when his ears go red," Daphne said as she reached up to cup Ron's ears with her hands. "It's always good for warming up my hands." The rest of the group laughed as Ron turned and tried to scowl at the pretty blonde witch. When she simply smiled back at him Ron gave it up as a bad job and shrugged.
"What is this - pick on Ron's day?" He asked.
.....
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