His spoon made a soft high-pitched sound as he put it back down on the saucer and took the cup to his mouth. His eyes wandered for a second as he took a sip of the tea. The room was sparsely decorated but held a lived-in atmosphere. Against the walls, a couple of old shelves holding books and knick-knacks were separated by the now empty glass case in which he'd seen the Quidditch cup the previous years. A heavy wooden desk, covered by a red and gold tablecloth, with neatly ordered tomes, graded assignments and a photo frame on top of it completed the room.
His attention came back to his professor sitting across from him, McGonagall was putting aside the tea-pot with a swish of her wand as her spoon was stirring by itself in the cup.
"I hope that you have settled back in well." She asked as she put away her wand.
"Yes. It's always great to come back."
Though he hadn't seen the Gryffindor dormitory for half a year, the castle was as close to a home as he ever had.
"And we are always glad to see the students return." A small smile played on her lips. "Though I fear I did not ask you to come so we could engage in small talk."
What, really? He would have never guessed. After all, it was a perfectly normal thing for Harry to be called into her office by his head of house.
...This early in the year at least.
"I must say, I am a little concerned about your recent results. You decided against repeating a year to retake your O.W.L.s and to continue your education in a single discipline. Did you abandon your ambition of joining the Aurors?"
"Pretty much." He shrugged. "The Ministry isn't really my biggest fan right now so I doubt they'd hire me even if I had the grades. I don't know what I'll do after graduation yet, but it's not like I'm the only one in this situation."
Far from it in fact.
Over the summer, the members of the DA had received their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s results. For the vast majority of them, Harry included, the results were quite terrible, ranging from Dreadful to rarer Acceptables. The odd exceptions were the all-around great grades in the Defence Against the Dark Arts examination. And Hermione still passed a majority of her subjects of course.
Though it had led to a few uncomfortable talks with some parents, almost every one of them had lost interest in schoolwork. They couldn't even think of losing the peace and wonders they'd found on Requirements to subject themselves to two more years of intensive cramming.
After a few animated evening talks over the stones, they had reached a consensus. They couldn't just up and leave Hogwarts and lose both a chance for a minimal magical education and the only access they had to the ship. They would all choose one or two classes they could pretend to sit into, following their O.W.L.s results, and continue working on the ship during the rest of the week. Katie, Cho and Marietta, their remaining upperclassmen, even followed that example and dropped out of most of their classes.
Their remaining classes were a mix of either classes that could prove useful on the ship and others they liked so much that they just wanted to continue taking them. Harry and most of the combat group had made the rather drastic choice of dropping every class except Defence Against the Dark Arts.
Many would spend a part of their newfound free time doing things they had put aside or never tried before. Seamus had installed another easel next to Luna's on the observation deck and Lavender had talked about creating an entire clothing line. Some even took the opportunity to pick up subjects that were not taught at Hogwarts, like Susan and Dean with healing.
They did have quite a few people so interested in learning as much as possible about the ship that they would work on it day and night if they could. Hermione, Lee and Terry had started devouring book after book of muggle science, trying to catch up and go beyond what they had missed during their magical education.
Between magic, science, foreign languages, arts, fashion and the all-around experimentations, the ship had become like a second school for them. It was a fun place to learn whatever you wanted at your own pace and a good way to take your mind off how things were going back home. Though they could all have done without Ernie's rather disastrous attempts to learn how to play the bagpipes.
"Yes. It saddens me that the Ministry's interference and the current situation have had such an impact on our students. No matter what career you decide to pursue, remember that my door is always open if you need to talk about it."
She shook her head slightly before taking another sip. He'd never really considered just how different that normal these last few years had been for the staff. Sure, it's how he'd always known Hogwarts and the magical world but things must have been quite different without murderous lunatics, ministry interference and ancient tournaments.
"Still, I wanted to talk to you about Quidditch. While I can understand that you might not want the responsibilities coming with the captain position, I was most surprised to learn that you chose to not be a part of the team this year."
"Sorry about that professor. It's just... There are too many things I need to do this year. I just don't have the time for Quidditch practice this year. Even more so if I had to organise everything."
Quidditch had been a big part of his life those last few years, but he just had so many things to do now... He couldn't take part in those intensive training sessions at the crack of dawn when he had equally tiring combat exercises and a mountain of reports that never seemed to get smaller. He truly felt sorry for letting McGonagall down, though. She had been the one who gave him the opportunity to play and, most importantly, fly, as soon as his first year.