wicked chuckle I had to laugh at Simon's comment about the "poor perp"; that was a definitely poor choice of a hostage (and, indeed, it does indeed resonate with "The Ransom of Red Chief" as you said it would). That was definitely a wicked flashback.
It's going to be interesting to see how this year shapes up for Harry. I do hope Albus gets his head a little straighter and realizes that sometimes he can't control everything and that there are powers totally beyond him. Meanwhile, I'm sure Hermione will quickly alert Padma that Harry will indeed be returning to Hogwarts. I do wonder if Harry will confide to any of his friends just what he was told about his choices; I could see the HA (Hogwarts Avengers, of course) forming in second year; as a dueling/workout club if the DADA professor is competent or in the same form as the DA if said professor isn't. If Harry ends up at Lockhart's signing this time, methinks Lockhart's not going to be able to teach after all and likely will end up out of things for a long time to come.
Author's response
- Actually that wasn't what I was talking about. I wrote out a scene in which Harry was successfully kidnapped by Whiplash (chosen for his being one of Shellhead's least effective villians) wherein a six or seven year old Harry refuses to remain tied up, blind folded or gagged, bugs the crap out of poor whiplash with little kid questions, keeps turning on the tv to Barney and singing along and just generally making the poor guy's life hell. It just didn't flow the way I wanted, so I cut it and came up with Spymaster instead.
- I may try that again and post it as an Omake...
- Yeah, you figured out how I'm going to make Lockheart go away...