This chapter is shorter than the last one, but I think it's still a pretty good length. Hugs and an answer to any question of their choice for any reviewer who can identify which episode of Eureka Harry walked into. :)

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 5—Too Cool For Normal School

Harry spent Saturday bored out of his mind. This afternoon, he went to see the clubs again and signed up for the band and a study group of first years that met on Sunday mornings. The math class that evening offered no respite and Harry found himself the subject of many stares and loud whispering. The material was dull and slightly below his level and he was tired from doing nothing all day.

Sunday morning, Harry was more than happy to go out to the grounds and find Madam Hooch so he could fly for a bit. He started out low to the ground, staying safe like he was supposed to, but after a while, Madam Hooch stopped paying attention to him in favor of the older students she was teaching and he saw a butterfly flying overhead. Flying straight up at it, he caught it loosely in his hands before letting it flutter away and he zoomed back down towards the ground again. It was a rush. A few minutes later, he was throwing stones from up high and diving down after them just before they reached the ground.

When Madam Hooch saw what he was doing, she ordered him down, scolded him for recklessness, and took two house points, but also smiled and told him he had incredible talent. Then she got serious again and told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to ruin it by taking stupid and dangerous risks.

Cowed, Harry returned to the castle for lunch and stared sullenly down at his ham sandwich, bored again.

Harry made it through another whole week, happy to be learning, but longing for a faster pace and, as much as he hated to admit it, more intelligent classmates.

It was almost a relief when a prefect came to him and said that he was going to escort him to the Headmaster's office.

Harry looked around in wonder as he sat in the soft chair in Dumbledore's round office. McGonagall was there too, as was Professor Snape, and of course, Dumbledore himself.

"So, Mr. Stark, I hear you've been doing extremely well in your classes. Tell me, how do you like them?"

Harry looked at the old man with the twinkling blue eyes and became slightly suspicious. Most headmasters didn't order students to their offices with said student's head of house and the deputy headmistress there just to ask if he liked his classes. "Fine, I suppose, sir. They're all very interesting. It's great to be learning things."

"Are you having any problems?"

"Well, the staring is annoying. And some people are refusing to use my actual last name."

The blues eyes twinkled again. Harry found it somewhat disconcerting. "Are you having any troubles with your lessons, Mr Stark? Your -ah- father indicated that you might be in need of a slightly accelerated program."

Harry immediately relaxed. This was his dad's doing. "It is a bit boring sir. I mean, all the new information is great, but, well, I wish I could get it a bit faster. There's nothing to do here. Spending hours every night reading textbooks is great until you've read through them all several times and there's only so many times I can listen to the same songs and read the same books, and quite frankly, I'm used to advanced astrophysics so basic astronomy, math, and endless safety rules with limited explanation, experimentation, or application is a bit more than dull."

He realized that he'd talked a bit more than he'd intended and snapped his mouth shut, looking at the floor to avoid seeing Snape's scowl. That man still hated him and he had no idea why.

"Hm," Dumbledore said, steepeling his fingers as he leaned back in his chair. "The way I see it, Mr. Stark, we have two options. We could try skipping years and simply moving you into classes with a higher year group, or we could try giving you more advanced assignments during class. The latter would eventually lead to you skipping ahead, of course, but it would provide a smoother transition, I think. What is it you really think would help, Mr. Stark? Longer essays and more information around what you're already learning, or a jump to more advanced material?"

Harry took a deep breath and looked up. "I could jump ahead like you suggested, sir, but I would miss out on the important, basic stuff. I'd like to make sure I learn all that, but I'd like to learn it faster.

"Sir, the fact is, I've completed most normal high school classes and I'm capable of doing the kind of work expected of a seventh year in regards to essay-length, but I'm not sure I'm capable of the magic yet. I mean, Professor Flitwick says that the magical core grows with the person."

The three professors looked at him.

"Well, I suppose I'll just leave it to your professors to decide how to handle this, then. All I ask of you, Mr. Stark, is that you let them know when you already know the material or you feel like you need more in-depth work. If that doesn't work, let Professor Snape or myself know. Should we aim for moving you to second year around Christmas or look more towards switching year groups come next September?"

McGonagall looked at the headmaster like he'd lost his mind. "We'll give you some more advanced work and then start speeding up what you're learning. We'll see where you get to by the end of the year. Will that do, Mr. Stark?"

Harry nodded uncertainly while Snape sneered but didn't say anything. "Okay."

Dumbledore smiled and nodded. "Well then, since that seems to be settled, would you care for a lemon drop?"

True to their word, the teachers did speed up his education. Snape only did so because he wanted to watch Potter fail, but Harry rose miraculously to the challenge and by Christmas, Harry was having too much fun working and learning to be homesick. He did, of course, dislike the long, tedious, and pointless assignments that even the best teachers handed out on occasion, but he also found comfort in it, as endless academia was something he'd had to survive through his whole life so far. Blaise was slightly jealous, as was the Gryffindor girl with bushy hair, although she was less pleasant about it, but Malfoy and Neville both thought he was a bit mad for wanting more work.

For math classes, Harry had his dad mail the problems he should work on and he did those during class instead of what the others were working on. In History and Herbology, he just got longer essays because there was very little point in speeding up how fast he learned those subjects, but he often got to go much more in-depth than the other students. In astronomy, Professor Sinistra threw her hands up in defeat after the first few weeks, dismissed him entirely from her classes during the day, and had him come to the midnight sessions with the OWL students.

In Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, and DADA, he was learning faster and more in-depth and he had reached second year material before he went home for the holidays.

Christmas was great. Harry missed Blaise and Neville a bit, but he got to be with his Dad and even spent a week with his cousin Tony while the man's PA tried to convince Nathan to work for them. He refused again, obviously. Tony could be imature, but he bought fantastic christmas presents and let Harry build robots, so it was all cool.

On Christmas morning, he found presents from Neville, Blaise, and Malfoy in addition to the others he'd gotten and wished he'd given everyone their presents before the break instead of waiting till after. He also got a really cool invisibility cloak which his dad confiscated.

When the time came to go back to Hogwarts, it was all too soon and Harry descended into whining twice. He did go back though, and happily gave people their late Christmas presents with apologies for not knowing how to get them to their proper places for Christmas.

A few weeks into the new term, Quirrel started watching Harry fly on Sunday mornings, which he found incredibly odd. When the broom bucked him off one day, he almost stopped flying altogether, but it certainly reinforced Madam Hooch's speeches about safety and staying fairly close to the ground. When the professor started asking him to come in for private tutoring sessions which, more often than not, resulted in incredible pain in his scar, he got worried. Snape's continued limp was a curiosity, but his deepened scowl any time he saw Quirrel was worse.

Bracing himself, Harry went to see his head of house on the second Monday in March. Leaning his enormous and really quite heavy cello case against the wall outside the office, he knocked on the door.

"Come in," Snape growled.

"Sir, I... well, I'm worried about something."

Snape scowled as he indicated the chair in front of his desk.

"I'm not sure how to say this, but I'm worried that Quirrel might be... doing something."

"What are you talking about, Stark?"

"Well, it's just that he keeps asking to see me alone for... private tutoring."

"You are attempting to get ahead in your classes, are you not?"

"Yes Sir, but whenever I'm with him, I get... well, I get this pain in my scar. I went to see Madam Pomfrey, but she doesn't know what it is, and, well..."

"Spit it out, Stark."

"I don't want to get him in trouble if he's not doing anything wrong, but... I'm worried that he might be..."

Snape growled in impatience.

"Well, I've been reading about coercion spells and I was wondering about how that might interact with a curse scar. Maybe that would cause the pain? Or something else? I mean, when I was younger, I was always told to tell someone if an adult made me feel uncomfortable, and Professor Quirrel acts really oddly and quite frankly, I'm worried that he might be trying to use some kind of spell on me that isn't working, maybe because of my scar, but he acts an awful lot like those people in the videos at space camp about abuse and stuff." Harry was blushing bright red and looking down.

He couldn't see it, but Snape was actually suppressing laughter. When he finally got himself back under control, he said, "Mr. Stark, I will look into the matter. You need not attend any of Professor Quirrel's classes until I speak to you again."

Harry sighed in relief. "Thank you, sir."

"You may go."

Harry nodded and stood up to leave. He was at the door when he turned around. "Sir, if you don't mind me asking, at the beginning of the year, you seemed to hate me a lot, but now it seems like that's a little less. Why... why is that?"

Snape resumed his scowl. "Your father was an arrogant bastard and a bully. You are just as arrogant. Unfortunately, you also inherited your mother's intelligence and sense od decency and I respect that to a certain degree. Now leave."

Harry nodded quickly and left, picking up his cello case on the way by and heading off as quickly as he could to band practice. He was terrible at his instrument and at all the other ones he'd tried, but it was sort of fun to play with a group. There were only a few of them that weren't horrendous, so they were all awful together.

That Wednesday, a students entered the common room and told Harry that Snape wanted to see him.

Putting his books aside, he rushed to exit the room and get to the man's office. When he got there, he knocked and waited.

"Enter."

"You wanted to see me, Professor?"

"Mr. Stark, from now on, your defense assignments will come from me. We have been unable to determine Professor Quirrel's motives and since the headmaster has trouble keeping that faculty position filled," Snape gritted his teeth at this point, "until we do, he will be staying. However, that does not mean you should be put anywhere near him."

Harry nodded. "Yes, Sir."

"Good, we'll start with an analysis of the different classifications of dark spells. One roll of parchment due Tuesday."

"Yes, Sir."

Snape nodded and Harry stood up to leave.

If Snape was a tough teacher in potions, it was nothing compared to what he demanded in Defense. Harry knew what he was doing though. He sometimes felt as though he could take on a couple of death eaters or a werewolf himself if he needed to. And he knew how to talk or maneuver his way out of a situation without wasting energy or being an idiot and getting into a fight.

Snape may not have been the most patient of teachers, but he was an efficient one.

June rolled around and Harry could sometimes almost carry a tune on his cello in addition to his accomplishments in academic areas. The technology club had been fun, but ultimately just a distraction. He was half-way through his first year exams, had taken two second-year exams, and was studying for his astronomy OWL, flipping through star charts while he ate his pear. There was a boom from somewhere above the common room and he looked up briefly before returning to the charts in front of him.

The next day at dinner, it was reported that Professor Quirrel had gone missing. Harry found it incredibly odd, but shrugged and continued his review of harvesting techniques and the power of number combinations in potioneering.

The last official day of term, Harry was summoned to the headmaster's office again, only to be confronted by a wrinkled, dirty old wizard's hat as soon as he'd sat down. "You were promised a resorting, Mr. Stark."

Harry thought for a moment, scratching behind his ear nervously. Finally, he said, "Uh, yeah, no thank you. I mean, if it's okay, I think I'd like—like to stay where I am. I mean, I'm happy in Slytherin."

Dumbledore smiled, his eyes twinkling mysteriously, and returned the hat to the shelf. Harry could have sworn he heard it harrumph. "Very good, Mr. Stark. I hear you have quite the summer work load."

"Yes, sir."

Dumbledore nodded. "Unless you have something to tell me, I believe that there is nothing else. Of course, you are welcome to a jelly baby. I find them quite delightful."

Harry felt his face twitch. "No-no thank you, Sir."

The headmaster nodded once more. "Very well then."

Harry stood cautiously, shooting one last glance behind him as he exited the office. On the way back down the many, many stairs, he got a call from his dad telling him to wear a suit when he got on the train the next day.

When the Hogwarts express came into Hogsmead and students piled into it, Harry boarded it with a pile of homework that would last for at least four weeks. He talked happily with his friends and when they reached the station, Harry said goodbye to them, promising to write. He stepped onto the platform in his best suit, trunk dragging behind him, and spotted his dad.

"Harry, I have something to tell you," Nathan said as they were directed through the wall.

"What is it?"

"I accepted a job as director of research at Global Dynamics. I got the same house we used to have, so it shouldn't be too big of a change. It's set up and ready to go as soon as we get there."

"You moved while I was away at school!?"

Nathan nodded as he attempted to hail a taxi.

"No, no, no! You. Moved. While. I. Was. Away. At. School. Why would you do something like that? Why didn't you tell me?"

"It happened last week, Harry; it's not exactly old news." Nathan finally got a cab and helped his son load the trunk into the back. "Our flight isn't scheduled until tomorrow, so we'll be staying at a hotel overnight. We'll talk more about this after the meeting, okay?"

Harry nodded, sulking with his arms crossed. His dad had moved, without telling him, while he'd been away at boarding school. What kind of parent did that?

he hadn't exactly liked Eureka. It hadn't been awful, but during the years they'd lived there, he'd been forced to attend an actual school. It was still mostly individualized learning—that wasn't the problem. The problem was that he got made fun of terribly when any piece of advanced technology he tried to use stopped functioning or blew up the second he touched it. He'd been back to private tutoring in just a couple months and then he'd been made fun of even more because he 'couldn't handle real school.'

At the end of the meeting, which Harry had been forced to sit through, Harry asked, "Is Allison going to be there?" before Nathan could say anything at all.

"Yes, Harry. Allison is there."

"Are you back together?"

"No."

"Mm, alright then."

When they finally drove into town, Harry was scowling.

"Stop it, Harry. You'll be going back to Hogwarts in two months."

"Yeah, will you move again next year?"

"I said stop it. You don't have to talk to anyone you don't want to, you'll only have to go to Tesla twice a week, and this is a good town, where I have a good job. You'll survive."

"I have to go to that school!?"

"Yes, you're going to school. Just because you're learning about magic doesn't mean you get to avoid non-magical subjects entirely. I've signed you up for a few engineering courses. Now that your magic is more controlled, it shouldn't be a problem."

Harry went back to sulking and in a few minutes, Nathan was parking outside of Café Diem. "Come on."

"You said I wouldn't have to talk to people." Nathan gave Harry the look and the eleven year old huffed and got out of the car.

"Harry! Is that you?" he heard as soon as they entered the café.

Vincent came around to greet them, smiling as always. Harry forced a half-smile in response.

"You've grown! Your dad's been here for over a week now. Where were you?" He smiled and winked at Nathan. Harry didn't know or care why.

"School. In Scotland."

"Scotland? How was that? Oh, anything you'd like, on the house!"

Harry sat on a barstool and put his elbows on the counter. "Pineapple-berry smoothie please."

"You've got it."

"It was school. I learned things, I did homework, I lived in Scotland. I was miserable for a while, but I got used to it."

"Yeah? What were your favorite subjects?"

"They had a really unique take on Chemistry that was incredibly interesting. Applications in medicine as well as all sorts of other things. They had a new take on History too. I think Defense was my favorite class though. I learned a lot."

"Well I'd love to hear all about it if you ever get the chance," Vincent said, handing Harry the smoothie.

Nathan handed Harry a house key. "I've got a test I need to be at. You can find your way home, right?"

Taking the key and shoving it in a pocket, he nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Anything else I can get you?"

Harry smiled. "Some toast and bacon would be great."

"Coming right up."

Harry trudged back through the streets after his toast and smiled half-heartedly at the people who greeted him. He was several streets away when he heard a gunshot. He figured that it was probably a bad idea to get involved though, so he kept going. About an hour later, he got to their old house, used the key to get inside, and flopped down on the couch in the living room. TV. That's what he needed.

Nathan wasn't home until late, but that was hardly unusual. It was midnight, and Harry was elbow-deep in books and parchment, researching the mechanics behind pain potions.

"Hey Harry, shouldn't you be asleep?"

"Yeah probably."

"Need some help?"

"No."

"Right." He pulled a glass out of the cupboard and poured himself some cranberry juice.

"I heard a gunshot this morning."

"Henry got shot. They're claiming memory loss. Nobody knows what happened."

"Huh."

The conversation went no further, as Harry was still sulking, and it wasn't even ten minutes later when Harry marked his places in the various texts, rolled up his parchment, put away his various writing utensils and notebooks, and went up the stairs to his room. It was going to be a miserable summer and Harry knew it. None of his friends even had telephones and he was stuck in an isolated secret town of super-technology. How was he ever going to stay in contact? He doubted owls could get through. Or even bother to try, what with the weather field and the various barriers and shields and the aerial surveillance.

Harry buried his face in his pillow and growled.

I absolutely adore each and every review! I love questions too, so lay them on! And I'm happy to hear suggestions.

Thanks for reading!

-MP