I spent so long with my head buried in the sand
My future needs a rewrite
So I'll send a postcard from wherever I may land
I ain't got no master plan and that's alright
I never wanna be like that
A suit and tie copycat
I never was into that
Hey yo, nah nah nah
I said hey yo, I'm all good
Imma do my own thing
Imma do me
Imma do my own thing

~

HARRY:

"How'd it go?" I asked Lucy once she returned to class.

"Oh, it was horrible," she said, laughing as she crouched down to stroke the head of the nearest porlock. "Merlin, what a nightmare that was. Where's Malfoy?"

"Malfoy?" Ron echoed.

"Yeah, I need a word with him. I suppose I can catch him after class, though."

I leaned closer to her so no one else would hear except Ron and maybe Hermione. "Why do you need a word with Malfoy? Did he...?"

"Oh, no, he didn't say anything to Umbridge, if that's what you're wondering." Lucy looked around for a moment, then gestured for me to get closer. "Archie joined the Inquisitorial Squad," she whispered, "but it's all a ruse, he doesn't plan on abusing his power. He told me that Umbridge instructed the entire squad to keep a close eye on the two of us in particular, so he recommended keeping our heads low."

"Well, that's unfortunate timing," I muttered.

She grinned ever so slightly. "Tell me about it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked, but Lucy pretended not to hear her. Hermione seized advantage of the silence and continued berating me under her breath for still planning on breaking into Umbridge's office. She laid off a bit when Umbridge herself appeared to supervise Hagrid for the rest of the class period, thankfully, but it was still unfortunate that Umbridge was there at all.

As soon as class ended, Lucy screwed up her face into a hurt expression and walked up to Malfoy. "You've turned Archie against me!"

"Oh, did I?" Malfoy sneered in response, a smug expression on his face. "I'd say I did him a favor. He finally had the good sense to join the noble cause of Slytherin house. Still refuses to call anyone a Mudblood, but I'm sure after a while he'll come around on that point too."

"Yeah, maybe," Lucy spat with a particularly nasty fake glare in Archie's direction. "He's already turned his back on me after we've been friends since first year. He was friends with my brother too. I bet Cedric is—"

"Rolling in his grave? I hope so," Malfoy said, and the false hurt on Lucy's face became real. "He was a disgrace of a pure-blood anyway."

Archie looked for a second as if he'd try to intervene, but Lucy silenced him with a look so I stepped forward.

"The only disgrace here is you, Malfoy," I said, grabbing Lucy by the arm. "C'mon, don't waste your time, he's just going to try to hurt you no matter what you say."

"Yeah, right, save the Mudblood," Malfoy hissed in my ear as I started to walk away.

I whirled around, ready to hex him so hard he wouldn't be able to speak for a month, but Lucy swatted my wand hand. "Don't waste your time, he's going to run crying to his daddy no matter what you do."

"At least I have a father to run crying to, if I so choose. Where's yours, Scars? How about yours, Potter?"

Archie forced a laugh, then clapped Malfoy on the shoulder. "C'mon, mate, bullying the orphans is too easy. Let's go see if the third-year you hexed yesterday has learned his lesson yet before our next class starts."

And with that, it was over. Lucy watched the two boys walk away, her face a perfect blank. After a couple of seconds, she snapped out of it and started walking toward the castle. I fell into step beside her as Ron and Hermione jogged forward to catch up.

She reached out and squeezed my hand a bit. "Don't let Hermione get to you," she whispered. "I know why you have to do it."

The rest of the day passed in much the same way, with me silently stressing about breaking into Umbridge's office, Hermione tearing into me under her breath, Lucy offering her assurances with little touches and affirming words, Ron just trying to balance out the three of us. After a disastrous Potions period, I made my way to Divination, but I was so distracted by how horribly my day was already going I didn't remember my appointment with Professor McGonagall until I was already five minutes late.

I sprinted all the way to her office and burst in breathlessly. "Sorry, Professor, I forgot."

"No matter, Potter," she said, shuffling pamphlets on her desk. "You can sit."

As I did so, though, I heard a sniff not belonging to Professor McGonagall. To my dismay, Umbridge was in the corner with a clipboard. I bit back a groan and turned to face Professor McGonagall.

"Well, Potter, this meeting is to talk over any career ideas you might have, and to help you decide which subjects you should continue into sixth and seventh years. Have you had any thoughts about what you would like to do after you leave Hogwarts?"

I nodded, trying to ignore the annoying scratching sound behind me. "Well, I thought of, maybe, being an Auror," I admitted in a mumble.

"You'd need top grades for that. They ask for a minimum of five N.E.W.T.s, and nothing under 'Exceeds Expectations' grade. Then you would be required to undergo a stringent series of character and aptitude tests at the Auror office. It's a difficult career path, Potter; they only take the best. In fact, I don't think anybody has been taken on in the last three years." Behind me, Umbridge coughed, but Professor McGonagall carried on. "You'll want to know which subjects you ought to take, I suppose?"

"Defense Against the Dark Arts, I suppose?" I asked.

"Naturally. I would also advise—"

Umbridge coughed again. Professor McGonagall paused for a moment before carrying on.

"I would also advise Transfiguration, because Aurors frequently need to Transfigure or Untransfigure in their work. And I ought to tell you now, Potter, that I do not accept students into my N.E.W.T. classes unless they have achieved 'Exceeds Expectations' or higher at Ordinary Wizarding Level. I'd say you're averaging 'Acceptable' at the moment, so you'll need to put in some good hard work before the exams to stand a chance of continuing. Then you ought to do Charms, always useful, and Potions. Yes, Potter, Potions. Poisons and antidotes are essential study for Aurors. And I must tell you that Professor Snape absolutely refuses to take students who get anything other than 'Outstanding' in their O.W.L.s, so—"

A third cough. This time, Professor McGonagall didn't ignore it.

"May I offer you a cough drop, Dolores?"

"Oh no, thank you very much. I just wondered whether I could make the teensiest interruption, Minerva?"

"I daresay you'll find you can," she sniped.

"I was just wondering whether Mr. Potter has quite the temperament for an Auror?"

"Were you? Well, Potter, if you are serious in this ambition, I would advise you to concentrate hard on bringing your Transfiguration and Potions up to scratch. I see Professor Flitwick has graded you between 'Acceptable' and 'Exceeds Expectations' for the last two years, so your Charm work seems satisfactory; as for Defense Against the Dark Arts, your marks have been generally high, Professor Lupin in particular thought you — are you quite sure you wouldn't like a cough drop, Dolores?"

"Oh, no need, thank you, Minerva. I was just concerned that you might not have Harry's most recent Defense Against the Dark Arts marks in front of you. I'm quite sure I slipped in a note."

"What, this thing?" Professor McGonagall asked, scanning a piece of pink parchment before setting it back down and continuing. "Yes, as I was saying, Potter, Professor Lupin thought you showed a pronounced aptitude for the subject, and obviously for an Auror—"

"Did you not understand my note, Minerva?" Umbridge interrupted.

"Of course I understood it."

"Well, then, I am confused. I'm afraid I don't quite understand how you can give Mr. Potter false hope that he will become an Auror, doing it with Miss Everlin earlier was confusing enough—"

"False hope? He has achieved high marks in all his Defense Against the Dark Arts tests, they both have—"

"I'm terribly sorry to have to contradict you, Minerva, but as you will see from my note, Harry has been achieving very poor results in his classes with me, and I have since included a similar note in Lucy's folder—"

"I should have made my meaning plainer. They have both achieved high marks in all Defense Against the Dark Arts tests set by a competent teacher."

Umbridge instantly dropped the sweet act and returned to her clipboard in a rage.

Professor McGonagall turned back to me. "Any questions, Potter?"

"Yes, actually. What sort of character and aptitude tests do the Ministry do on you, if you get enough N.E.W.T.s?"

"Well, you'll need to demonstrate the ability to react well to pressure and so forth, perseverance and dedication, because Auror training takes a further three years, not to mention very high skills in practical defense. It will mean a lot more study even after you've left school, so unless you're prepared to—"

"I think you'll also find that the Ministry looks into the records of those applying to be Aurors," Umbridge interrupted. "Their criminal records."

"—unless you're prepared to take even more exams after Hogwarts, you should really look at another—"

"—which means that this boy has as much chance of becoming an Auror as Dumbledore has of ever returning to this school."

"A very good chance, then."

"Potter has a criminal record!"

"Potter has been cleared of all charges!"

Professor Umbridge jumped to her feet, insignificant though this change was due to her short stature. "Potter has no chance whatsoever of becoming an Auror!"

"Potter, I will assist you to become an Auror if it is the last thing I do!" Professor McGonagall declared, also rising to her feet. "If I have to coach you nightly I will make sure you achieve the required results!"

"The Minister of Magic will never employ Harry Potter!"

"There may well be a new Minister of Magic by the time Potter is ready to join!"

"Aha! Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Of course! That's what you want, isn't it, Minerva McGonagall? You want Cornelius Fudge replaced by Albus Dumbledore! You think you'll be where I am, don't you, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister and headmistress to boot!"

"You are raving. Potter, that concludes our career consultation."

I didn't hesitate a single second before rushing out of the room as the two women continued shouting behind me. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking throughout DADA. If I got caught, I couldn't even begin to imagine the disappointment of the people like Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore, who'd stuck their necks out for me in major ways recently. But at the same time, the twins had rigged up a distraction, and I had my Invisibility Cloak and my knife from Sirius in my bookbag. But at the same time, if I got caught, I'd be screwed in more ways than one. But at the same time, the thought of just continuing to wonder if my dad was really the prick Snape had always said he was made me feel sick to my stomach. But at the same time, so did the thought of getting caught.

Hermione's persistent whispering wasn't helping. "I hope you've thought better of what you were planning to do, Harry... Umbridge looks like she's in a really bad mood already... Dumbledore sacrificed himself to keep you in school, Harry, and if you get thrown out today it will all have been for nothing..."

As we left the classroom, I was still feeling terribly conflicted. Hermione followed me out, still begging.

"Harry, don't do it, please don't do it!" she pleaded.

For the first time, Ron stood up for me. "Give it a rest, okay? He can make up his own mind."

"You're right, Ron," Lucy said. "He can." She reached forward and squeezed one of my trembling hands. "Whatever you decide, I'll see you in twenty minutes, alright? Everything will work out, we will all be alright."

That was the exact assurance I needed to hear from the one person in the world I could always trust.

Thank Merlin Lucy always had hope.

I nodded, squeezed her hand back, and ducked into the swarms of students, running in the direction of Umbridge's office. As I ran, I heard the sounds of the diversion starting — screams, yells, and Umbridge's shrieks above it all — and felt more and more confident in my decision as I went. I had twenty minutes. I had plenty of time if I moved quickly and confidently.

Maybe my Auror training is beginning this very second, I thought to myself with a little thrill of excitement.

Once I was close to the office, I pulled the Invisibility Cloak out of my bag and over my head and grabbed the knife from Sirius. I hurried the rest of the way to her door and slid the knife up and down along the edge of the door a couple of times, and to my delight, it opened easily to reveal a completely empty office. I closed the door behind me, shed the cloak, and hurried to the fireplace.

I'd never Floo-ed just my head before, but the concept wasn't terribly foreign, though the sensation was incredibly strange. Soon enough, I was seeing into the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place, looking at the lower half of a man reading a newspaper at the table.

"Sirius?" I asked.

It was Remus who replied, though, jumping up and rushing over. "Harry! What are you — what's happened, is everything alright?"

"Yeah. I just wondered — I mean, I just fancied a — a chat with Sirius."

"I'll call him. He went upstairs to look for Kreacher, he seems to be hiding in the attic again."

With that, Remus disappeared for a couple of minutes, returning with Sirius shortly. They both dropped to their knees in front of the fire to study me.

"What is it?" Sirius asked. "Are you alright? Do you need help?"

I shook my head. "No, it's nothing like that, I just wanted to talk... about my dad."

The two exchanged a look, but I didn't have any time to waste so I quickly recounted the story of everything I'd seen in Snape's Pensieve.

Remus was the first to speak. "I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen—"

"I'm fifteen!" I protested.

Sirius grimaced. "Look, Harry, James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other, it was just one of those things, you can understand that, can't you? I think James was everything Snape wanted to be — he was popular, he was good at Quidditch, good at pretty much everything. And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts and James — whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry — always hated the Dark Arts."

"Yeah, but he just attacked Snape for no good reason, just because — well, just because you said you were bored," I replied.

"I'm not proud of it!" Sirius asserted without a moment's hesitation.

"Look, Harry, what you've got to understand is that your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did," Remus said. "Everyone thought they were the height of cool, if they sometimes got a bit carried away—"

"If we were sometimes arrogant little berks, you mean," Sirius corrected, earning himself a fond grin from Remus.

"He kept messing up his hair," I said.

Sirius and Remus laughed.

"I'd forgotten he used to do that!" Sirius exclaimed.

"Was he playing with the Snitch?" Remus asked.

"Yeah, he was. Well... I thought he was a bit of an idiot."

Sirius laughed. "Of course he was a bit of an idiot! We were all idiots! Well — not Moony so much."

"Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape? Did I ever have the guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?" Remus asked, shaking his head.

"Yeah, well, you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes. That was something."

"And he kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!" I said, determined to have my say now that I'd gotten myself into a situation where I could find answers.

"Oh, well, he always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around, he couldn't stop himself showing off whenever he got near her," Sirius replied with a shrug.

I groaned. "How come she married him? She hated him!"

"Nah, she didn't," Sirius said with a grin.

"She started going out with him in seventh year," Remus added.

"Once James had deflated his head a bit."

"And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it."

"Even Snape?" I asked.

Remus pursed his lips. "Well, Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?"

"And my mum was okay with that?"

"She didn't know too much about it, to tell you the truth. I mean, James didn't take Snape on dates with her and jinx him in front of her, did he?" Sirius frowned when I didn't laugh. "Look, your father was the best friend I ever had, and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it."

I sighed. "Yeah, okay. I just never thought I'd feel sorry for Snape."

"Now you mention it, how did Snape react when he found you'd seen all this?" Remus asked.

"He told me he'd never teach me Occlumency again, as if that's a big disappoint—"

"He what?" Sirius yelped.

Remus leaned closer. "Are you serious, Harry? He's stopped giving you lessons?"

"Yeah. But it's okay, I don't care, it's a bit of a relief to tell you the—"

"I'm coming up there to have a word with Snape!" Sirius declared, but Remus shook his head.

"If anyone's going to tell Snape it will be me! But Harry, first of all, you're to go back to Snape and tell him that on no account is he to stop giving you lessons — when Dumbledore hears—"

I shook my head. "I can't tell him that, he'd kill me! You didn't see him when we got out of the Pensieve—"

"Harry, there is nothing so important as you learning Occlumency! Do you understand me? Nothing!" Remus insisted.

"Okay, okay, I'll... I'll try and say something to him... but it won't be..." I stopped talking when I heard footsteps. "Is that Kreacher coming downstairs?"

Sirius glanced behind him and shook his head. "No, it must be somebody your end."

"I'd better go!" I hissed, yanking myself out of the fireplace and throwing the Invisibility Cloak over myself just as Filch appeared.

He muttered to himself as he hurried over to Umbridge's desk. "Approval for Whipping... Approval for Whipping... I can do it at last! They've had it coming to them for years!"

I jumped up and followed after Filch as he gleefully hurried from the office, parchment in hand. As soon as it was safe to become visible again, I stuffed the cloak into my bag and joined the throngs of students that had gathered in a corridor. In the middle of the mess were Fred and George.

Umbridge marched forward triumphantly. "So! So you think it amusing to turn a school corridor into a swamp, do you?"

Fred nodded, unflinching as he watched her descend the stairs toward them "Pretty amusing, yeah."

"I've got the form, Headmistress, I've got the form and I've got the whips waiting!" Filch exclaimed as he met up with her at the base of the stairs. "Oh, let me do it now!"

"Very good, Argus. You two are about to learn what happens to wrongdoers in my school," Umbridge announced, wagging her finger at the twins.

"You know what? I don't think we are," Fred replied, glancing at George. "George, I think we've outgrown full-time education."

"Yeah, I've been feeling that way myself," George said with an easy grin.

"Time to test our talents in the real world, d'you reckon?"

"Definitely."

They raised their wands into the air. "ACCIO BROOMS!"

Surely enough, their brooms shot through the air directly to the twins, still carrying the heavy chains with which they'd been trapped in Umbridge's office.

Fred mounted his broomstick, glaring at Umbridge. "We won't be seeing you."

"Yeah, don't bother to keep in touch," George commented as he climbed onto his own broom.

"If anyone fancies buying a Portable Swamp, as demonstrated upstairs, come to number ninety-three, Diagon Alley — Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes! Our new premises!" Fred declared to the crowd, unmistakable excitement in his voice.

George pointed to Umbridge. "Special discounts to Hogwarts students who swear they're going to use our products to get rid of this old bat."

Umbridge gestured wildly toward the Inquisitorial Squad. "Stop them!" They all stepped forward, but it was too late.

Fred and George swiveled their heads and winked at one particular section of the crowd. Following their gazes, I found Lucy, beaming with pride as the boys kicked off into the air.

"Give her hell from us, Peeves," Fred instructed the poltergeist, who was hovering just above Ginny on the other side of the crowd.

Peeves lifted his transparent arm into a salute as the twins zoomed off through the open castle doors into the sunset, raucous cheers echoing off the stone walls as they left.

Chaos ensued, but in the midst of the sea of people, Lucy suddenly appeared in front of me.

"Your dad wasn't a git, right?" she shouted over the noise of the crowd.

I sighed. "I don't think so!" I shouted back.

"Good!" Lucy grinned. "Tell me more later, Ginny and I are going to go put fireworks in her office while she's distracted. Bye!"

With that, she disappeared into the crowd again, and a few seconds later, I saw the two girls slip away from the crowd and hurry in the direction of Umbridge's office. I couldn't help but laugh. They were twins in training, truly.

I thought it was interesting that Lucy had wanted to become an Auror, too. She had made an effort to dodge anyone's questions about her career, but knowing she was interested in the same career I was admittedly made me more excited about my future than I had been in a long time. Maybe one day we'd be breaking into offices together, wedged under the Invisibility Cloak. I let myself entertain the notion for a couple of seconds before heading off to check out the Portable Swamp business the twins had arranged.

Little did I know that the fun was only just beginning.

~

Time won't get the best of me
I see the world so differently
You do you and I'll do me
March into my own parade
My heart don't beat any other way
You do you and I'll do me, me, me, me
Imma do my own thing
Imma do me
Imma do my own thing

"Do My Own Thing"
American Authors