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AN: Funniest chapter I've ever written, a bit of an omake, but eh, what can you do, its canon.
-/-
After having successfully snuck into his dorm, Harry had to remain there for the rest of the night while listening to his roommate's gossip. He could have cancelled the noise over his bed, but he couldn't sleep himself. It wasn't particularly interesting for Harry to listen to the gossip from the other students about how the trolls could have possibly made it into the castle, but it distracted him well enough.
The only at least somewhat funny theory had been that the troll was here to recover the cultural artefact of his people on the seventh floor. The tapestry of the trolls trying to learn ballet.
Rather than focusing on the incessant chatter, Harry was more focused on thinking about the fact that Slughorn's Halloween party was obviously cancelled and that he wasn't going to be seeing Snape anytime soon.
Also, the Dark Lord, who might potentially regain his body alongside a philosopher's stone, of course. Had his attempt worked? He'd seen Quirrell shortly after. Surely he would have fled the castle if he'd succeeded.
Harry chose to believe that the stone was fake, a decoy to trap Voldemort. But what if Dumbledore really was as dumb as a load of bricks?
He eventually had to resort to a potion to go to sleep long after everyone else had been knocked out. There wasn't anything he could do anyway; at the moment, he could only trust in Dumbledore. It galled him. He wished he was stronger.
-/-
To his endless gratitude, Quirrell was still present at the professor's table the next morning, as was Dumbledore.
There was only one issue, however.
Neville, Harley and Hermione were shooting him furtive glances, as if having reevaluated their opinions on Harry.
They looked like they were unsure if they thought he was awesome or scary or if they wanted to take him on a date. All three of them.
Harry shuddered.
-/-
It was after the troll situation had been cleared that Harry realised the potential of the patronus to track people. If it could reliably deliver a message to everyone, then wouldn't Aurors be using it to track criminals?
He felt a bit bad about how he hadn't immediately realised that earlier, so they could have found Hermione earlier. That was why he wanted to know the limits. To understand his repertoire in future crisis situations.
Rather than going to Dumbledore and losing his time, he decided to experiment by himself. The old man was too cryptic.
That was why, on the day after the troll had been defeated, the entirety of Hogwarts was plagued by a silver raccoon zooming around and harassing seemingly randomly picked people.
-/-
Penny was working on the Draught of the Living Dead. Harry had hinted that in the sixth year, Slughorn might reward the student who performed the potion the best with a vial of Felix Felicis.
This seemed to be confirmed somewhat because she knew that last year Harry's older Hufflepuff friend, Tonks, had received a vial.
It had never been clear what she'd used it for, though.
Regardless. Disregarding the use of the potion, simply being able to see and touch a vial of Felix Felicis was a great honour for any aspiring potioneer.
That was why, every now and again, she would work on this particular potion.
If she was lucky and if her hard work paid off, she would do her O.W.L.s in Potions next summer, and thus skip year 5 of the class.
Harry suggested it because if she did the exam after year 4, she would have the most preparation time for advancing, while also knocking out an O.W.L. early so that she could have more time for other subjects.
Then, in her sixth year, she could focus exclusively on getting an amazing NEWT in potions to get a good apprenticeship, before finishing a well-rounded report card in her other subjects in year seven.
It was nice to have a friend like Harry, she thought to herself. She could always be herself with him and Cedric, and he also helped develop the drive that would probably have been absent for another few years otherwise.
It was just as she was putting the finishing touches on the potion, a sprinkle of dried and crushed fig leaf harvested on the day of the dead, that something bright, silver and quick flashed through her vision.
She startled and took a shaky step back, and the crushed fig leaf fell all at once into the potion.
She looked at what had startled her while her brain screamed at her to run away from the potion that was going to explode in the next five seconds.
The crushed fig leaf was supposed to be added slowly, not all at once.
"Oppan Gangnam style," the raccoon in front of her said helpfully before starting to do a weird little dance in the air. It had its legs wide apart and was mimicking a lassoing motion.
"Op, op, op, op, op, oppa gangnam style."
"Booommmm!!!"
The cauldron exploded, and dark smoke filled the room.
Penny barely escaped, coughing up fumes and was already bringing up her wand to start resolving the situation.
Her hair was ruined, pointing up comically and charred black, her face was full of soot, and her robes were smoking.
Before she could start fixing things, she had to get one thing off her chest.
"Harryyyyyyyy!!!" she screamed in near incoherent rage.
-/-
Cedric did a fake dive to distract the seeker he was practising against today.
The issue with the houses at Hogwarts was that there were never enough good players to have a backup for every position on the team. Luckily, this year, however, there was a sixth-year student who wanted to play a bit more before focusing on his NEWTs next year. He'd offered to serve as a sparring partner, and Cedric had been gaining a lot from it since the start of the year.
Recently he'd been working on his Wronski feint, and it was just as he was about to dive in another while at the same time dodging a bludger heading for his right arm that a silver shape flashed beside him and caught up to his broom.
"Huh?" Cedric exclaimed as a silver raccoon that he recognised from somewhere suddenly joined to fly beside him.
"Hey Cedric, just testing the patronus spell," the raccoon said in Harry's voice, which he was just about able to make out through the wind. "Anyway, I'll tell a joke now," it paused. "Your mom." Then it dissipated.
"Huuuhhh!?" Cedric exclaimed in sheer confusion.
Then the bludger smashed into him and threw him straight from his broom.
Before anyone could catch him, the team also surprised at the interloper, he smashed into the ground with a loud crash.
As he lay there with a dislocated elbow, an aching body and a rattled brain, there was only one thing on his mind.
"Cedric, are you alright?" his captain exclaimed, jumping off his broom next to the fallen boy and shaking him.
"If I die," Cedric started muttering almost incoherently.
"You can't die until the Slytherin match next weekend!" the captain ordered harshly.
"Tell Harry... that, at least I have a mom," Cedric finished before his head lolled back into the soft grass, and he passed out.
-/-
It was as Harry was sending out patronus after patronus to test who exactly he could reach that he considered some other things as well.
The troll situation had been defused, but what he'd always been confused by when reading the books was how the school year could continue so normally when a student had almost died.
Of course, that was sort of a trend at Hogwarts; after all, a student had almost died or had just straight up died in every one of the books.
But still, it was weird seeing it.
James Potter had kept Harry almost dying because of Twix's stupidity in his first year a secret. Maybe because he'd known back then that he'd run for minister, and what he'd caused, intentional or not, had been a bit cringe.
Similarly, last year, Charlie Weasley had actually died. Sure, not on school property and also because he'd ignored the rules, but still.
Would the school year have just continued normally if it had been found out that he and Tonks had gone to fight the werewolf and almost died as well?
Harry was starting to suspect that, yes, yes, it would have.
The only real consequence of the troll had been that Neville, Hermione and Harley were a nearly inseparable trio who haunted the halls with their obnoxiously exclusive friendship, as much as it was centred on worshipping the ground Harry walked on.
Another minor change was that the Slughorn Halloween party had been cancelled, but Harry had already received a new invitation inviting him to a pre-Christmas party.
He'd still have a chance to meet Snape then.
Of course, the time around Christmas was very family-oriented, so maybe Snape would rather focus on that.
Harry laughed.
"Multiverse theory or not, there is no world in which Snape gets bitches and spawned a pet sperm," he said to himself.
The patronus that he'd summoned zoomed off to forward the message.
Harry froze.
"Fuck," he said with wide eyes. He'd been just automatically spawning that thing.
Who had been the recipient again?
He slowly realised that it was Dumbledore.
He'd wanted to send one just to tell the frustrating old man that he'd solved his stupid riddle.
He shrugged. "Well…" he muttered.
-/-
On the other side of the castle, an old man was running blue in the face as he slowly suffocated on a lemon drop lodged firmly in his throat.
A silver mist next to him dissipated while a phoenix worriedly circled its master as he struggled to survive the ruthless attempt on his life.
He didn't know who'd sent the patronus, but there was only one person who disliked Severus and still held on to it childishly enough to do something like that.
'Sirius Black,' Dumbledore thought angrily as the edges of his vision darkened. 'A hundred points… from Slytherin.'
-/-
Harry wrote down the results of his experiment. As he'd hypothesised, the patronus message variation seemed to be bound partially by familiarity.
It was only those people whom he was passingly familiar with and who he had some wish to talk to that the patronus went to visit.
For Umbridge and Filch, with whom a conversation would bring negative joy, the patronus simply refused to leave, looking at him in confusion. It even made a disgusted face gesture as if asking, 'Why would you want to talk to them?'
Interestingly enough, the Patronus he'd sent off towards Quirrell had actually worked, implying that Harry was more grateful than he'd thought for the high-quality lessons he'd received.
-/-
Quirrell froze in his chambers, the turban that he usually wore on his head pooling on the ground around him.
A silver raccoon suddenly appeared in front of him, causing him to take an inadvertent step back. As he did so, his feet got tangled up in the cloth and he tripped with wide eyes.
The fall almost happened in slow motion as the raccoon tauntingly started singing.
"I thought you'd appreciate this song," it said in Evans' voice as Quirrell smashed into the stone floor, the back of his head experiencing a painful crack.
"Saw this boy at the mall last week; got the kind of look to make me freak. That long ass hair with the tightest jeans, My Chemical Romance on his tee…"
The lyrics of Emo Boy rang through the room as Quirrell clutched the back of his head in pain.
-/-
"Thinking about it," Harry muttered. "Would Flitwick be interested in learning the variation?" he asked himself. "He did tell me that he didn't know it after all."
-/-
On another side of the castle, a very short man fell off a stack of books as he was startled by a silver Patronus shouting "Boo!" into his ear.
-/-
"Probably, right?" Harry mused before a knock suddenly sounded on the door of the abandoned classroom he was practising in.
He froze, wondering who even knew that he was here, before going to open it.
"Penny, what happened to your hair? Cedric, why is your arm in a cast? Professor Quirrell, what are you doing here? Professor Flitwick, you look hurt!?"
It was as Harry hung suspended, tarred and feathered from the astronomy tower, that he saw the trio of Hermione, Harley and Neville going into Hagrid's hut.
He shook himself and tried to scream, but no words would come out from the rag in his mouth.
-/-
On the next day, a new spell was added to the banned for recreational use list hung outside of the Great Hall.
'As the first piece of light magic ever banned in these halls (because of Harry Evans), we regretfully inform all students (Harry Evans) that a non-necessary use of the Patronus spell is strictly prohibited.
-/-
AN: Laughed so much writing this so I couldn't not release it. Take it as a short break of levity from the otherwise more dark themes. Read 35 chapters ahead on Patreon!