This bothered me. First of all, Harry is a 16 year old kid at this time and he's able to at least throw hexes and curses at a very intimidating and extremely talented Dark Arts duelist through training others. His only training partners at this time are a bunch of kids who aren't nearly as good as he is and who, in the long run, never will be because their life isn't dependent on it.

Secondly, he doesn't just get great grades in DADA, he manages to help others exceed to the point where they also got extremely good grades, which to me, indicates a very good grasp of the subject that you claim he isn't up to par with adults in. He takes on Lucius Malfoy and his cronies in the previous books so how is it that he's beaten by Snape? It's because Snape is (as previously mentioned) extremely talented at dueling and dark arts.

In the end, it has nothing to do with Harry slacking and everything to do with the skill levels involved between age groups. You can't expect a toddler, (even an exceedingly bright one) to fight and win against a grown up. Plus, Magic seems to be pretty hard if their are actual theories and studies involved, rather than just rote memorization. Harry may not be an excellent student, but I think in the end he's by no means a slacker, he just has skills that are good or bad just like everyone else.

 

IIRC, Harry learned a number of spells in preparation for the third task.

 

Harry is just like Ron, if given the chance. His past kept him from living a life of leisure like nearly every other student:
1. He wouldn't be affected by the Dementors so harshly without the memory of his mother's death
2. He wouldn't have been in the tournament without Crouch Jr's intervention.
3. Hogwarts wouldn't have had a High Inquisitor without the aftermath of the Triwizard Tournament.
4. The Half-Blood Prince's potion manual allowed him to excel at his least favorite class with less effort than he had to input prior...

I honestly feel that Harry's true potential comes out in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. He has a near precognitive ability to do exactly the right thing at exactly the right time to save himself, while deducing clues with barely a shred of evidence.

Despite what some in here are saying, you don't have to change Harry's character to make him into an excellent wizard. You just have to keep him from hiding in a tent for a year while others lose a war. He already had all the potential and motivation to learn, but that wasn't his destiny. He didn't need to be taught how to fight, he needed to be taught how to die.

 

In a world where a word and a gesture can kill you quick as thought, getting the jump on someone is probably a good indicator of how good they are, regardless of what spell they used.

 

Harry was learning a NEWT level spell against Boggart!Dementor. He was facing his worst nightmare every lesson and he didn't have much happy memories in his life then. And not to mention actual Dementors everywhere. Thats pretty impressive and don't forget he beat Snape in the shack.
Maybe you should read GOF again because he learnt loads of owl and newt level spells with no one's help. If it isn't impressive I don't know what is.
In OOTP he was teaching spells to older students none of them could do they couldn't even cast a decent disarming charm a spell which Harry learnt in his 2nd year. The so smart Ravenclaws couldn't do it nor did the best witch of her year Hermione. In the ministry fight he beat several DE's and duelled with Bellatrix.
I remember reading Slughorn saying many times how perfect Harry's potions were which shows he had improved. You can't just make perfect potions even if you were using much easier instructions. And he humiliated Snape in his first defence class. And in the end of HBP he had lost his mentor and he was in completely angry and wasn't thinking clearly in one bit. If he was normal in his head he would have beaten Snape. What he has done no slacker could have done and no slacker would have been the best student in the school. If Harry was slacker he would been useless like Ron and would have died.

 

If Harry isn't a slacker then he's stupid. If he's been working his ass off behind the scenes and is still so utterly average at magic then he just isn't all that bright.

 

If Harry was a slacker he would have given up after a few times of trying to learn a difficult spell and went playing exploding snap with Ron not practising it until he learnt it.

 

Dumbledore did things with a wand that Madame Marchbanks had never seen before, while Harry managed a charm the entire Order was using as glorified post owls around the same age. He learned this out of necessity, after having gone back in time and seen himself do it already, and after having failed at performing it all year long. Dumbledore had no such drive or motivation, yet excelled far past this.

Harry's skills in defense may have been excellent in comparison to his peers, but that's because none of his peers were truly excellent. Hermione wouldn't be counted by anyone who'd seen Dumbledore's OWLs or NEWTs as prodigious, yet she's told countless times that she's the smartest witch of her age. You make of that what you will.

He would never have worked so hard if it wasn't out of necessity. His character is inherently lazy until properly motivated. Being the best he could be was most definitely not motivation for Harry Potter. His life, on the other hand...

 

Uh, not really. Harry had the threat of an extremely painful and imminent death hanging over his head when he learned the summoning charm, which prior to that he had not bothered to master. Similarly, when he learned the Patronus Charm it was in response to extraordinary circumstances.

A person who needs extraordinary circumstances to be motivated to learn something, who only then learns the minimum required to just about survive those circumstances, and who then returns to not putting in any special effort after the circumstances have disappeared (until the next set of special circumstances arise) is not a hard working person.

 

Harry's OWL grades:

Astronomy A
Care of Magical Creatures E
Charms E
Defense Against the Dark Arts O
Divination P
Herbology E
History of Magic D
Potions E

You can see he worked his ass off to get those grades.

 

Ummm.... not sure if serious...

Let's Calculate that based off of my grading scale.

A=O
B=EE
C=A
D=P
F=T

He got one A, four Bs, a C, a D and an F. That's an average of 2.375, or a mid-C. The middle of the bell curve. Average... Even taking into account the issues with his history of magic exam, that's still only a 2.71.

 

If Harry worked his ass off for those grades, we return to "he's stupid", because they're awful grades.

If Harry didn't work his ass off and your point is that he did well without working hard... well, he didn't, because he didn't do well. They're awful grades.

And finally, we have no evidence that Harry worked hard at all, beyond the handful of spells he had to learn for his various adventures. But when it comes to regular school work? No mention is ever made of him putting any kind of special effort into his homework, or choosing to spend his free time practicing spells.

 

OWL exams as said to be extremely difficult and require extreme hard work. 7 OWLs is pretty good and Dumbledore was proud of him. In normal circumstances I think he could have done even better. With most of the wizarding world calling him insane, having nightmares, learning occlumency, teaching stupid kids how to do spells and his relationship with Cho don't you think it was impressive he got those grades. And I don't agree with Harry being average. When compared with Dumbledore and Tom he comes off as average but when compared with rest of the wizarding world he is an excellent wizard.

 

No, I don't. My buddy managed straight As through Appalachian State in computer engineering after giving his sister a kidney, while still doing a ridiculous amount of drugs and acting a fool. That's talent, despite a lack of priorities. Harry always has months of downtime between portions of his adventures, yet barely learns enough to hit the middle of the bell curve. He starts weak, studies weak and tests weak.

That's not excellent. It just isn't.

 

In the Wizarding world they think its pretty good. With a fraud teacher how could he pass divination and he collapsed halfway through his history of magic exam. Weak would be getting results like Fred and George only 3 OWLs. Intellectually he is not as good as Dumbledore and Tom when they were his age but I think he was more powerful. I don't think Dumbledore or Tom could produce a Patronus to drive away 100 dementors at 13.

 

Neither could Harry, if asked to replicate the feat. That Patronus was a unique result of time travel.

Also, the whole "100 Dementors" thing is fanon.

Also, remember in the books that the Patronus doesn't work like a huge shockwave, as it did in the film. Harry's Patronus in PoA was powerful, sure, in that it was very solid, but it wasn't capable of attacking the Dementors all at once. It basically defended the area where Harry and Sirius were.

On the topic of Fred and Geroge, I'd definitely say they're better wizards than Harry.

Finally, you're placing too much focus on "getting an OWL" i.e. passing. Passing is the lowest of all possible achievements. Getting an OWL should not be something to boast about. The only achievement worth boasting about is getting an O, and even then that's not worth much.

 

See Cheddar what you've done? Now you made me want to read a oneshot where Harry, Albus and Tom are taken from their 5th years at Hogwarts by some time-travelling person/force and all of them are made to compete in some tournament.

Actually, now that we're talking about it, who do you think was better at 15, Albus or Tom?