The Tinkerer
Chapter 6
The four Hufflepuffs were having such a great time that they didn't realize how late it was until the sky started to get a predawn glow. "We gotta go!" Becca called out to Harry and Tosha, who were still zipping around on their brooms, tossing around a ball Becca had conjured.
They came in and landed. As Harry's feet touched the ground and he dismounted, he was overcome with the mad desire to get back on and just fly all the way back to school. "Flying is awesome," he said. His face hurt from smiling, and his whole body was sore, and he just wanted to keep flying. Never in his life had he felt this simple euphoria before. Never in his life had he felt so at home in his body, so free, so awake, so light, so bright.
"Settle down, flyboy," Becca said. "It's time to go."
Harry's legs felt noodly as they walked back down that long tunnel, like your legs might feel after a long bike ride, or after getting off a boat. But he soon noticed that they were going downhill, which reminded him that they had been going downhill on the way up, too. So he asked, "Is this tunnel charmed to be a two-way downhill?"
"It's all part of Our Lady the Saint of Mischief's grand design," Frankie said in a parody of religious reverence. "Don't worry about it."
"She did all of the Opening Walls, too," Tosha said. "And of course the Why-Try. It's all old Bones Family magic."
"Actually, Our Lady the Saint of Mischief invented the Why-Try Charm and the Down-We-Go," Becca corrected. "The Opening Walls are old family magic, though. The Boneses did the one at the Leaky Cauldron, too."
Harry felt a great deal of admiration for Our Lady the Saint of Mischief and her family. It also got him to wondering if his own family had any old family magic. He had no idea how to go about looking into that, though. He got the impression that such things were generally kept secret, so it wasn't like he could just go to the Hogwarts Library and check out a book called Super Secret Magic of the Potter Family. Then again, there might not be any family magic – he had no particular reason to think that there would be. Not for the first time, he was disheartened by how much he did not know that he should know. "I'll be needing a broom if I get on the team," he said.
"No problem," Becca said. "You can use mine. You just have to buy me one."
Harry wrapped his mind around this: of course! Although firsties weren't allowed to have their own brooms, there wasn't a rule specifically forbidding them from borrowing another person's broom. So, he would just go out and get Becca a nice broom as a perfectly innocent gift to a dear friend – then borrow it from her for every practice and every match. The only problem was, brooms were tremendously expensive, and there was no way he was going to just mail the thousands of galleons to some sporting goods place – nor did he have that much money, or rather it was all in Gringotts. "Sure," he said. "I'll just pop over to Diagon and buy one."
"So true," Frankie said. "It's a problem."
"No problem at all!" Becca declared. "Don't fill your silly little firstie head with things that don't matter yet."
"But I will be needing a broom," Harry protested. "Or rather, you will."
"I said don't worry about it," Becca said, sounding supremely unconcerned.
Harry decided to trust her. After all, she had carried him this far. Of course, there was one other thing: "How much does one of those Galebursts go for, anyway?" he asked Tosha.
"Oh, you can't buy these," she said. "You'll be getting a Nimbus."
"Are they discontinued or something?" Harry asked. Becca and Frankie both groaned.
"Well," Tosha said, "It's like this. This little Galeburst of mine wasn't just the top of the line when it was released. It was a revolution in broom design. It put all other brooms to shame. But, unfortunately for the Barnaby British Broomstick Company, there was an unsavory character working for them, an enchantress who knew everything about the broom, and had access to all of their documents: Boris Barnaby's own wife Tamilda. Well, to make a long story short, one day not long after this top-of-the-line, revolutionary broomstick hit the market, she got a better offer from the Swiftly Flight Company. So she snuck into the Barnaby workshop in the middle of the night, stole everything but the walls, and fled the country. Six weeks go by, and Swiftly surprises the entire world with the release of their newest broom: the Nimbus 2000."
"Corporate espionage," Harry breathed. "Nasty."
"Very nasty," Tosha agreed. "Now, this wasn't the first time someone had put out a knock-off broom. But the Nimbus 2000 isn't just a knock-off. It's got all of the same spells, from the twig-retainer to the impact-absorber. It's a perfect clone except for the paintjob."
"But that wasn't the final nail in the coffin for Barnaby Brooms, was it Tosha?" Frankie asked, kindly assisting her storycraft.
"No, it wasn't Frankie," Tosha said, smiling at him. "The final nail in the coffin was the pricetag. Those boys at Swiftly didn't have to recoup the losses of years upon years of research and development, and they have the facilities to mass-produce. Hundreds of enchanters. So, Swiftly was able to price the Nimbus 2000 at less than half the price of the original Galeburst.
"Barnaby Brooms sued, of course, but Swiftly Flight is an American company, and international patent law is a nightmare. In the meantime, Barnaby Brooms has stopped production, because they can't sell the same broom at twice the price. Plus, their capacity was only forty brooms or so a month to begin with, and they would have to cut even that since Tamilda Barnaby ran off. Swiftly is a huge company, and they can make a thousand a month. So, all of the professional teams had no choice but to buy a Nimbus even if they wanted to support Barnaby, since there weren't enough Galebursts to go around."
"Wow," Harry said. "It's sad."
"Tragic!" Tosha said. "But let me tell you a little tidbit on the sly. Don't be spreading it around, but Uncle Boris doesn't care about the lawsuit. That's all just to waste Swiftly Flight's resources. Those boys know they're guilty, and a lot of other people know it, too, so they're spending massive amounts of gold on lawyers and on trying to salvage their reputation. Actually, Uncle Boris is already working on the next generation broomstick. He says he's going to put those damn Swiftly Flight people out of the market for good with it."
"Uncle Boris?" Harry asked.
Tosha stood up proud and straight. "Of course! Boris Barnaby is my uncle," she said. "How else would I have this broom?"
"That's a very special broom, too, isn't it Tosha?" Frankie facilitated.
"Right you are, Frankie!" Tosha said, beaming at him. "This broom right here is actually the Galeburst Version Zero-Dash-Seven. It's the final prototype they made before they finalized the real Galeburst. That's why it has brown twigs instead of black, and it's hard to tell but it's actually a slightly different shade of blue. And look here, its serial number is zero-zero-zero-dash-seven. It's one-of-a-kind."
Harry was suitably amazed. "Thanks for letting me ride it," he said. "I would have been more careful if I knew all of that."
Tosha beamed at him and ruffled his hair patronizingly. "Don't worry about it, kid," she said magnanimously.
"I'll feel bad buying a Nimbus, though, knowing all of that," he said.
"Don't feel bad, Harry," Tosha said. "Uncle Boris isn't making any more Galebursts."
Even though she said that, the thought of handing over hundreds or thousands of galleons to the company that had ruined her family business made him sick. He didn't think he could do it. He resolved to buy some other broom instead, even if it wasn't as fast. Of course, he couldn't say that, since Tosha would probably just try to convince him that it really was okay. He knew it wasn't okay. A broom like Frankie's would be good enough, and then he could buy the next Barnaby broom whenever they started selling it. It was hardly like he needed a professional broom just to play in the Hogwarts House League, anyway.
This got Harry very thoughtful. He was an aspiring enchanter – what if he built a broom?
They all laughed at him when he voiced the idea. "You can't just make your own broom, first of all," Becca said, the first to recover. "It has to be properly licensed and so on. And I get that you're smart or whatever, but brooms are not easy to make. Just the most basic broom you could imagine would still need dozens of enchantments. It's not a project for a beginner."
Neither, Harry thought, was BitHeap. Still, that hadn't been his first program, and it had taken him two years of hard work to make. He would have to buy a broom. But maybe, in a few years...
"If you're really serious about it, maybe Uncle Boris will hire you. After you graduate, I mean," Tosha said.
By the time they had walked the entire two point six miles back to school, Harry was exhausted.
"This is the tricky bit ..." Becca said as they arrived back at the entrance to Hufflepuff. She stroked the pattern on the apple painting and it swung open, and they all crept in quietly as they could. To their great relief, the Common Room was deserted.
"We got caught once, last year," Frankie revealed. "Stuart Johnson was asleep on the chair, I guess, and we woke him up when we came in. He didn't care, though: Stuart's a stand-up guy."
"We got off lucky," Becca stated. "Okay, here's your potions." She handed each of them a small vial of teal fluid which Frankie and Tosha immediately took a sip of.
Harry asked, "What's that for?"
"Power-Through Potion," Becca said. "Necessity for all-nighters. It's Auror grade, so just take a sip if you've never tried it before. It was invented by –"
" – Our Lady the Saint of Mischief," Harry finished.
"Now you're getting it," she said. "Go on, have a sip."
Feeling slightly unsure about it, Harry clinked his vial with Becca's just like the butterbeer earlier and sipped. He felt immediately rejuvenated – in fact, he felt like he could go run a marathon. Or, better yet, go fly some more.
"Be careful with that stuff, kid," Tosha said. "People get hooked on it."
"So true," Frankie said. "You probably don't want to show it around to your friends."
"But why didn't we take it before the hike back?" Harry said.
"It's better to make sure you're done getting tired, before you use it," Tosha said. "If we took it before the walk back, you'd be worn out by lunchtime and want another dose." Harry wasn't entirely sure if that made sense to him, but he nodded in acceptance.
"Alright, off to bed with the lot of you," Becca said.
Harry went back to his suite and took a shower. He was a mess – dirty, sweaty, his hair terribly tangled. He realized when he came out that he must have been in there for a long time, since the other boys were getting out of bed.
"You're up early," Neville commented sleepily.
Harry said, "Yeah. I got a few winks in."
At breakfast Harry realized that he would have to tell Hermione, Susan and Cerie, at least, that he would be trying out for Seeker. They needed to know, since it would more than likely necessitate an adjustment in their enchanting schedule. So he made his little announcement to the other first year Puffs.
"You'll be doing what?" Susan said, blinking at him like he'd grown an extra head.
"I'm going to try out for Seeker," he said again.
Hermione looked confused. "What's a Seeker?" she said.
"It's a Quidditch position," Cerie explained. "Harry's saying he wants to play on the Quidditch team."
"Yeah," Harry said, smiling. "I think it'll be a lot of fun. So I'm going to try out. I probably won't get on the team, though. I barely know how to fly a broom."
"How do you even know how to fly?" Hermione asked.
"I learned over the summer," Harry said, making it up as he went. Wow, he thought. I really should have come up with a good cover-story. Oh, well. "I took a class. It's a lot of fun."
Susan was just shaking her head. "Harry, even if you did know what you were doing, there hasn't been any first years in Quidditch in over a hundred years."
"I didn't know that," he said truthfully. "Well, I'll just have to do my best."
"But Harry, why do you even want to play Quidditch?" Hermione asked. "I didn't think you were into sports."
Harry shrugged. "I'm not really into sports at all. But I'm super into flying on a broom. It's brilliant. So I figure getting on the Quidditch team is about the only way they'll let me fly regularly, first year. Since we're not allowed to have our own brooms."
Hannah said, "But that's right. You can't have a broom. So how –?"
"I'll figure it out," Harry said.
"I bet you'll make the team, too," Ernie said, "Because you're a fucking legend." Ernie suddenly started cracking up, and everyone was wondering what he thought was so funny until he said, "You remember Malfoy yesterday? His face! It was priceless. I'll never forget it. I mean, his face!"
Harry and most of the others rolled their eyes. Ernie would probably be talking about that for weeks, they could all see. Ernie just kept laughing for the longest time, and eventually the rest of them were laughing at him laughing.
"Oh sweet Merlin," Ernie said faintly after he had finally calmed down. "Complete legend. Yeah, Harry's going to make the team for sure."
"I think so, too," Megan piped up. Harry was surprised, since he had barely ever heard her speak. He gave her a thankful smile and she looked down at her eggs.
"How is that even related to Quidditch?" Hermione demanded.
"Don't question it," Justin said. Then he asked, "What's our first class today, anyway?" at the same time as Wayne said, "So what's Quidditch all about?" and the Puffs diverged into two different conversations – talk of school on the left, talk of sport on the right. Harry, sitting pretty much in the middle of the group, tried to play his part in both of the conversations until he noticed Dumbledore watching him with glimmering eyes. Harry watched him back for a while, until Dumbledore gave him a little smile and a little nod. Harry couldn't identify the reason, but Dumbledore's gesture of approval somehow made him feel pleased. Then the flood of mail owls came pouring in, and Harry looked up at them, and when he looked back at Dumbledore the ancient warlock was deep in conversation with Professor Flitwick.
When they got to Charms, Harry thought he had an inkling what the two old Professors had been discussing. Professor Flitwick, after waiting for the last of the students to trickle in, said, "Good morning, good morning class! Now, I have something rather special for you today. Normally we would spend the first month of class going over the most basic of basics, just to make sure that you're all up to snuff when it comes time to wave those wands. However, I've decided that it might get all of you much more enthusiastic about things if we went ahead and got our hands dirty! So we're going to put all of that theory to one side just for today, and jump right in to the good bits: we will be starting on the Levitation Charm."
Many of the students actually stood up and cheered as their tiny professor beamed down at them from atop his stack of books. For Harry and Hermione, who had already mastered the spell way back in July, it was hard to see why so many students were so very excited to get cracking on it. They shared a look of confusion over their peers' ecstatic reactions. It soon became apparent, however, that they were in a very small minority. Besides Harry and Hermione, only a handful of others already knew the charm: Cerie, Terry, Lisa Turpin, Sophie Roper and Tracey Davis. Harry was really quite amazed. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but now he remembered that Neville said back on the Hogwarts Express that he didn't know any magic at all. Harry could see that that was the norm, and even among the handful who knew the charm, none of them could cast it perfectly like he could. Cerie, the only other Hufflepuff besides the duo who knew it, had a very wobbly charm indeed. There was no way she would be able to levitate a glass of water without spilling like Harry could.
Hermione suggested that they should go around the classroom and help the other students who hadn't gotten it down yet. Hermione was keen on helping others learn and scoring points for Hufflepuff. Harry was keen to continue to observing the class, and he thought that going around and helping them would be a good way to do so, and might earn them a bit of recognition from their peers, too. Plus it was a good chance to introduce himself to some of their yearmates in other Houses. So they wordlessly divided the class into two halves and split up.
For the first fifteen minutes or so, it went very well. Harry was able to get Theodore Nott levitating a quill without any complications: he just needed to resolve his focus and tighten up his wand motions. Sue Li had everything else perfect but just needed some coaching on the pronunciation of the incantation. Professor Flitwick, who was still atop his dangerously tall stack of books, would grin and award points for Hufflepuff with each student they helped, saying, "Oh, well done, Miss Li! A point for Ravenclaw, and I think a point for Hufflepuff too, for Mr. Potter!" or "Good show, good show, Miss Patil! A point for Gryffindor and a point for Miss Granger as well!" It was like they got triple cherries on the House Point slot machine and they just kept pouring out. Their tiny professor was simply overjoyed. "Oh, marvelous, marvelous! There are so many worth-watching new students this year!"
Then somebody said, "Potter, I could use some tips over here."
Harry turned and looked and saw the boy who had confronted Ernie after Herbology the day before. Brown hair and blue eyes, lips slightly quirked in a smirk he probably thought was subtle. Harry had a bad feeling about this. He thought about just ignoring the boy and going over to help Neville, who was struggling. But it was obvious that Harry had heard him. So he straightened up his hat in preparation and walked over to the boy's table.
"What's your name?" Harry said.
"Could you demonstrate the swish-and-flick for me, Potter?" he asked with a goblin-grin on his face.
"Of course," Harry said. "Let me just see what you have so far."
"Oh, all right," the boy said. "Something like this?" he flicked his wand and then swished it.
To Harry, the boy's subversion of the wand motion confirmed beyond all doubt that he meant Harry ill. Even so, there seemed to be little to do about it: Harry noticed that Draco Malfoy, sitting at the table behind the boy, was watching the scene unfold with narrowed eyes, and Harry, remembering Ernie's admonishment the day before, thought it would be ill-advised to demonstrate social ineptitude in front of Draco. Therefore he had to resolve this situation himself.
"Actually, you have it all backwards," Harry said.
"All backwards?" the boy said, eyes wide in his best imitation of shock, which was not particularly convincing at all. "Oh, no! Could you show me how?"
The girl sitting next to him glanced at Draco and saw his building ire. She looked like she was about to intervene, but Harry said, "Just like this," and demonstrated the levitation spell on the feather.
"Oh, all right. Like this?" the boy actually performed the spell – but with the wand motion still reversed. The feather melted, making a terrible smell. "Oh, no!" he said. "You've taught me all wrong, Potter!"
"What do you think you're doing, Zabini?" the girl next to him said.
"Oh, just getting a few tips from Potter," he said innocently. "That's all right, isn't it Parkinson?"
"No," she said. It sounded like she was talking to an untrained puppy or a particularly troublesome unwanted stepchild. "Stop it."
Zabini actually looked a bit taken-aback by her vehemence. But he said in the same innocent way, "Oh, all right. Thanks for the tips, Potter."
"No," Harry said, smiling at the girl. "Thank you, Parkinson."
She beamed at him. Harry walked away to help Neville, who, he realized belatedly, was struggling more than most. It had been a mistake, he concluded, to walk around and help random students – it would have been better to start with the other Hufflepuffs. "Hey, mate," Harry said. "Let me help you out."
Harry and Neville were soon distracted by a scene taking place not far away. Hermione had gone over to help the Gryffindors, but it seemed like Ronald Weasley was more interested in throwing stones than casting spells.
"I didn't ask for your help," he said moodily.
"No," Hermione said, "But you do need it."
"I don't see how Harry Potter can stand you. You're a nightmare!"
Harry was about to go over to her defense, but Ernie grabbed his wrist to stop him. Ernie said, "Hermione's too smart for that little git to hurt her. Let her handle this."
Hermione, however, looked uncharacteristically put out by Ronald's words. "That isn't true," she said. "I'm just trying to help you. Look, the wand motion is like this." She demonstrated for him. "And you've been pronouncing the incantation wrong. It's Win-GAR-di-um Lev-i-O-sa. Make the 'gar' nice and long."
"I can figure this out on my own, thanks," Ronald said.
"Let's see it then," Hermione said, putting her hands on her hips.
"Fine! Win-gar-DYUM Lev-yo-SA!" Ronald's quill shot up into the air, spinning like a top, flying all the way up to the ceiling. Then upon contact with the ceiling it disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.
"Now," Hermione said, "You see that you do need my help."
"What are you on about? It levitated, didn't it?" Ronald said. Except when he said it, all of the other Gryffindors, as well as all of the other students who had been watching, just started laughing at him. Ronald turned as red as a tomato – Harry could imagine steam coming out of his ears as he laughed at the boy.
Hermione looked rather smug when she said, "You're absolutely right," and moved on to help another student – another Gryffindor boy, who did not seem to share Ronald's attitude.
Neville was able to get his feather up in the air and stable on the next attempt, earning him claps on the back and 'Good show!'s from Harry and Ernie.
Since all of the first years had Transfiguration after Charms, it was a group of about forty students that made their way between the two. In the cacophony of the students flooding the hall, Ernie muttered to Harry, "I saw that upstart messing with you. Let's curse that smirk off his face."
In Transfiguration, Harry was surprised to find himself dragged to the back corner of the class by Hermione. "Since when do we sit in the back?" he asked.
"I noticed something interesting in Charms," she said quietly. She glanced around to make sure that nobody was listening and continued, "What did you notice about the students that already knew how to do the spell?"
Harry thought it over. There was him and Hermione, plus Terry and Lisa, plus Cerie, and also Sophie Roper from Ravenclaw and Tracey Davis from Slytherins. He tried to see what they all had in common, but came up with nothing, so he tried, "They're mostly witches? Only two out of seven were boys."
"That's true, but no." Hermione didn't give him the correct answer, though.
Harry thought about it some more and finally realized, "Out of all of them, you're the only muggleborn?"
"That's true too, but no," Hermione said.
"None of them were Gryffindors?"
"True, but no."
"Okay, I give up," Harry said. "Just tell me."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, just tell me."
"All right. Well, out of all of the students that already knew the charm, not a single one of them was an old blood."
Harry frowned. "But what about Cerie? And that Slytherin girl must be old blood."
"Not so," Hermione said. "Cerie is a new blood. So are Tracey Davis and Sophie Roper."
Harry's frown deepened. "New blood? I don't really know what that means ..."
"Oh, honestly, Harry. I have a really good book you should borrow, called Magical Society: a Brief Overview of Society and Government in Magical Britain."
"I'll be sure to read it," Harry said. "Now, what is a new blood?"
"Basically it's anyone who's got eight great grandparents that are all witches and wizards, but whose family isn't old enough to be old blood."
"I see," Harry said. "So it's in-between halfblood and old blood."
"Sort of," Hermione said. "There's different kinds of halfbloods … it gets complicated when you talk about halfbloods because the one half could be a muggle or a muggleborn, and then the other half could be a new blood or an old blood. Or, actually, they could be another halfblood, I suppose."
"Okay," Harry said slowly. "So I would be … er..."
"You would be a muggleborn-old blood halfblood," Hermione said. "For those who care about such things, that makes you more pureblooded than most other people who are considered halfbloods."
"I see," Harry said, scratching his head. "People really care about all of this?"
"Yes, they do," Hermione said, and Harry had never heard her speak in such a tone of bitterness before. "It's all hardwired in how the government works."
"That's not right, though," Harry said, feeling a bit shocked.
"Be that as it may," Hermione said, "That's the government we have. Anyway." She paused and let out a puff of air. "I found it interesting that out of all of the students in the class, out of the ones who could perform the spell, there were examples of muggleborns (me), halfbloods (you, Terry and Lisa) and new bloods (Cerie, Sophie and Tracey), but no examples of old bloods."
"That's interesting," Harry agreed. "But … does it mean anything?"
"Quite possibly, no," Hermione said. "After all it's only one case study, and an anecdotal one at that. However, I just found it interesting."
Harry nodded slowly as he turned the information over and around in his head. "There's no particular reason to assume that having old blood is even related," he concluded. "However, what we can determine is this: those students all studied magic before school, while the others did not."
Hermione nodded. "That seems to be true," she said. "And that fits my hypothesis."
"You have a hypothesis?" Harry asked, amused. "And you didn't share it?"
"Of course I had to show you the data first," she said. "Or it wouldn't make any sense, would it? Now, there are pretty strict laws against parents teaching their children magic before school –"
"But we studied over summer," Harry pointed out.
"That was a crime," Hermione said. "That's why we only did magic in the park at Diagon – it was impossible to detect it there. We were fortunate we didn't start any fires or anything."
Harry blinked. It was a bit odd, to be informed that something you did months ago was illegal, and you've been a criminal ever since then. "Okay," he said slowly.
"I thought you knew, actually," Hermione said. "I read about that a few days after we met, so I naturally assumed that you knew, too."
"Glad I know now," Harry said flatly.
"Anyway," she said without much concern. "It's illegal to study magic before school. However," and here she leaned in close, "I found a loophole."
"Oh?" Harry said. His interest was now thoroughly piqued. He wondered if it was a kind of loophole that could be applied retroactively.
"Yes, Harry," she said. "It's really quite simple: if one of the members of the household – be it a parent, or an older sibling, or a cousin – has a Certification of Education, then they are allowed to give private lessons to any student over summer, perfectly legally."
"I see," Harry said. "And that includes the summer before Hogwarts, too."
"Exactly," she said, beaming.
"But why don't the old blood families just get certified?"
"Oh, they could," Hermione said. "But they don't. And here we come to my hypothesis."
"Let's hear it."
"Well, I hypothesize that due to long-ingrained social norms, it's considered not just illegal, but improper, to instruct one's children before they've gone off to Hogwarts."
"So," Harry said, "It's a social thing."
"Well, it's the law," Hermione said. "But it's a law that not all people take so seriously, since there's this obvious loophole. But old blood families can't afford to be caught teaching their children magic before Hogwarts with that loophole, because it would be a scandal. They could lose their positions. And even if they wanted to risk the scandal, and go through all of the work to get that certification and teach their children magic, it would be very difficult since people would want to know why such an important person was interested in becoming a summer tutor. It would raise eyebrow, and people would ask questions. So, they are forced to sacrifice the tiny edge that their children would have in school in order to preserve the social standing that their children will need once school is over."
"But only old bloods have to worry about that," Harry concluded, "because they're the only ones who have such a high social standing that they won't risk it for anything."
"Yes," she said. "Although there are new bloods with good positions at the Ministry – even some department heads are new bloods or halfbloods like you, these days – that's just their job. They don't have the social positions that are, actually, more important."
"What exactly do you mean by social position, though?"
"Well, those new bloods and halfbloods with high positions in the Ministry would not have been able to get them without a sponsor on the Wizengamot nominating them."
"That's like the House of Lords," Harry remembered.
"I'm glad you at least glanced at your history text," Hermione said. Harry blushed. "Yes, sort of. Not all of the witches and wizards on the Wizengamot are actually nobles, though, not in the muggle sense – although many of them are. They are, however, almost all old bloods."
"Almost?"
"Well, there are some special cases," she allowed. "You can also be given a seat by earning n Order of Merlin, First Class – but it's not hereditary, in that case. Once your family is recognized as old blood, that's when you get a hereditary seat."
"I see," Harry said. "And in order for someone with supposedly inferior breeding to get ahead, they need one of those members to be their patron."
"Unfortunately, yes," Hermione said.
"Are all countries like that, though?" Harry asked.
"No," she said. "Not remotely. Do you know about the Grindelwald wars?"
"I read the chapters on them yesterday," Harry said.
"Then you know that Britain remained neutral throughout," Hermione said. "There is a good reason for that, you know. The thing about Grindelwald is, he wanted a system of government similar to Britain's for the rest of Europe, too. He never had any reason to attack Britain, because Britain was one of the few countries he liked."
"Oh," Harry said. "It doesn't say that in the book."
"Well, it wouldn't, would it?" Hermione said. "They can't just print inconvenient information like that. Actually, that's just my interpretation of it."
Harry gave Hermione a thoughtful look. "You studied this a lot," he observed. "Enough to notice the discrepancies."
"Well, not everyone was able to go to Diagon to practice charms practically every single day," she said somewhat defensively.
Harry grinned at her. "No, it's good, though. I don't know anything about this stuff. You're probably seeing all kinds of things that I don't even notice."
She smiled, pinkening a bit.
"So, the Potters being an old family, do I have a seat on the Wizengamot?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Harry. Even though you're a halfblood, a family cannot lose its seat by mixing, it only prevents them from being granted one."
"Does that come with a title?" he asked.
"Oh, lord."
"So, it's Lord Potter, is it?"
They were laughing still when Professor McGonagall came in and it was time for class to start. However, over the course of the lesson (which consisted of transfiguring a chicken's egg into a marble egg), they were able to continue their quiet conversation.
"Actually, the title is Warlock," Hermione said. "As in Warlock Potter. But you don't get the title until you resume your seat, which you can't do until you're at least seventeen. Until then, your seat is vacated. And it's a bit old-fashioned to use the title outside of Wizengamot meetings."
"Fascinating," Harry said. "It's too bad that the government is insane – but at least I get a cool title. Warlock Potter."
"You're unbelievable!" she said – but her outrage was tinged with amusement.
"Don't worry, I'll sponsor you," he said placatingly.
"Honestly, Harry!"
They tried to contain their laughter to be quiet enough to not attract the teacher's attention: they failed. Professor McGonagall came over and said, "May I ask what is so amusing?"
The look on Hermione's face was pretty priceless, Harry had to admit. She had probably never attracted negative attention from a teacher before. Harry rushed to turn the situation around to a positive. "Sorry, Professor," he said. "It's my fault. I was just doing something a bit silly with the spell."
"You were doing something silly with Transfiguration?" Professor McGonagall repeated, scandalized. "Mr. Potter, explain."
"I was making some pictures on my marble egg, you see," he said. He took his wand and performed the spell, and showed the result to the professor. It was a completely black marble egg except for white markings in the shape of a cat's face, with green spots for the eyes.
"My word," the professor said. "Excellent work, Mr. Potter. However, please do endeavor not to disrupt the class." She handed the egg back and walked away.
"We almost got in trouble," Hermione said, and her voice was, in fact, very troubled indeed.
"Well, let's buckle down, I suppose," Harry said. But there was little to do, really. He practiced the spell over and over again, getting more and more creative with the shapes and colors of the marble patterns – then making it hollow, then making it come apart like a Fabergé egg, then making the container into the shape of a rooster's head...
"I don't understand how you're so good at that," Hermione said.
"Just remember the principles," Harry said. "It's not unlike Potions, really."
"But that's what I'm doing," she said. "And it works – my marble egg is fine – but you make it look so easy."
Harry shrugged. It was easy. For him, Transfiguration was even easier than Charms, and that was easy enough already. "Mr. Ollivander did say my wand was good for transfiguration work," he said. That was a lie. Mr. Ollivander had had a lot to say about his wand, but not that.
"But he said that my wand was good for transfiguration, too," Hermione said, frustrated.
"Look around, though," Harry said. "You are doing very well."
They surveyed the class just in time to catch Ronald Weasley accidentally cracking his egg with a ferocious poke of the wand. Several other students had completed the transfiguration, but many more were struggling. "A lot of them never really got the matchstick-to-needle down," Harry said. "This isn't any harder, but they still should have kept working at that transfiguration until they could do it properly."
When the class was over, Professor McGonagall asked for Harry to stay behind for a private word. After assuring Hermione that he'd see her at lunch, Harry waited for the rest of the students to file out, then approached Professor McGonagall's desk.
"Professor," he said. "Sorry about the disruption earlier. It won't happen again."
"Hm? Oh, that. No, don't worry, Mr. Potter. It's perfectly natural that you were bored. That isn't to say that it should happen again, of course."
"Oh," Harry said. "Thank you. Er – so what did you wish to discuss?"
The professor rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Tea, Mr. Potter?"
"Please," he said. The professor clapped her hands and, to Harry's startlement, a creature that looked similar to a goblin appeared. The first difference Harry noticed was its choice of wardrobe: while goblins were partial to pin-stripe suits, polished leather shoes and gold pocket watches, this creature wore a red pillowcase with the Hogwarts crest on it, and had no shoes at all. The creature was carrying a tea set on a silver platter. As quickly as Harry's eyes could follow, it arranged two cups and a teapot on the desk, bowed to Professor McGonagall, and disappeared with a pop.
"What – ?" Harry said, eyes wide.
"Hm. You really do know so little," the professor said, eyeing him speculatively. "Oh, I mean no offense, Mr. Potter. But I must admit, considering how well you've been performing in all of your classes, I had been beginning to suspect that perhaps you were not quite as foreign to the wizarding world as you led others to believe. But that reaction just now was no stage-acting. Clearly, you've never seen, or likely never even heard of, a house-elf before."
"No," Harry agreed, but his mind was awhirl. This was some kind of interrogation, he realized. To buy time while he tried to process the situation and formulate a response, he said, "It's a servant?"
"Try the tea," the professor said. "It's a very nice Darjeeling."
Harry had a sip, but he was paying very close attention to his body and his mind. Accepting a drink from a witch was not, after all, the safest thing to do under any circumstances, least of all when being interrogated by them. But there didn't seem to be any effect. He felt foolish for his paranoia: of course, it would be insane for a teacher to give him potion in his tea. "It's very good," he said.
"I do enjoy it," she agreed.
"So, you thought I had contact with the wizarding world?" Harry said. "Would that have been a bad thing?"
"Oh, by no means," she said. "Forgive me, that is not what I meant to imply. If it were up to me, you never would have been removed from our world. But, things being as they are, it simply seemed odd. I can see now, however, that my suspicious were wrong-founded. You are simply a very bright child."
"Thank you," he said. He had no idea what she wanted from him, and he felt very uncomfortable. He sipped his tea quietly and watched her. She seemed to be in no great hurry to come to her point, however, so Harry said, "I wonder, why are you so interested in me?"
The professor smiled sadly at him. "Yes, it must seem odd to you," she said as if in sudden realization. "You have no way of knowing this, Mr. Potter, but in truth I was quite close to your parents. So naturally I am interested in your wellbeing."
"I see," Harry said, blinking rapidly. This was, he realized, the first time he had met anyone who had personally known his parents (other than his aunt, who actually had never met his father at all, and had fallen out with his mother when they were teenagers). Suddenly his mind was a rush of questions that he wanted to ask – but he held back, mindful of his initial suspicions. It would be unwise, he realized, to take to someone just because they knew his parents. Probably there were hundreds of people that knew them, but that did not mean that they all had his best interests at heart. "What exactly was your relationship to them?"
Professor McGonagall set down her teacup and seemed to think about this for a moment before she said, "I have instructed Transfiguration in this very classroom for many, many years, Mr. Potter, but never did I have such a remarkable student as your father. He was a progidy in every sense of the word. He was a mischief maker, it's true, but he was a good boy. And later, a good man. We would often have tea, just like this..." She trailed off, lost in thought. "We spoke of many things," she finally said.
"I see," Harry said.
Professor McGonagall eyed him strangely. "You are as similar in appearance to him as any son and father I've know," she said. "I must confess, when I first saw you Sunday evening, I had thought that you would be just like him."
Harry wondered if she expected him to apologize, or what. He wouldn't. He said, "As far as I can tell, I'm not much like anyone."
She laughed, just a small laugh, and her voice was sad when she said, "I suspect that that is true. Mr. Potter, I do not mean to detain you from your friends, who I'm sure your eager to get back to. But I want you to know that my door will always be open for you if you would like to talk, be it about Transfiguration or anything other."
At lunch, after Hannah chastised him for being late, all of the Puffs wanted to know what McGonagall had wanted. Harry said, "She told me that she was friends with my dad. And that I could come talk to her if I wanted to."
"Everyone was friends with your dad," Susan said. Neville, Ernie, Cerie and Hannah were all nodding. "He was insanely popular."
"Really?" Harry said.
Susan frowned at him. "Don't you know anything about your parents?" she asked cautiously.
Harry, looking around at the faces of Susan, Neville, Ernie, Cerie and Hannah, realized that he really didn't know anything about his parents. Here were a bunch of people that he had only met a few days ago, and they all knew more about his own parents than he did. He suddenly felt overwhelmed by emotion. He felt his eyes stinging – he didn't want to cry. How humiliating it would be, to just start crying in the middle of lunch. He bit his cheek, trying to distract himself. Susan handed him a vial. "What is it?" he said.
"Just drink," she said.
He trusted her, so he drank it, and then felt incredibly calm. It was like his emotions were not his own – they were things that he knew about, and could analyze, now. "I don't think I like this," Harry said.
"I know," Susan said. "Trust me, I know. But it's better than the alternative."
Harry had to agree. He felt so strange: almost like an out-of-body experience, it was an out-of-emotions experience. It was horrible in its own way, but it was better than breaking down into a sobbing puddle of snot and tears in the middle of the Great Hall. "Thanks," he said.
"It's okay," she said, smiling at him warmly.
"Sorry about that, everyone," Harry said.
"It's okay."
Ernie cleared his throat and adjusted his Hufflepuff tie and said, "More importantly, we've got to do something about that little creep."
"Zabini?" Harry asked to clarify, since he was aware of another boy that might fit that description.
"Yes, Zabini. We've got to … well, we should curse him, that's what we should do."
"You can't just curse him," Hermione said. "That's horrible. All he did was insult you."
"All he did?" Ernie said, amazement on his face. "Isn't that enough?"
"No," Hermione said firmly.
"What about what he did in Charms?" Ernie said.
"What did he do in Charms?" she asked, having not witnessed the scene.
"He was such a creep to Harry," Ernie said. "He kept asking for Harry to demonstrate the wand motion..."
"That doesn't sound so bad," Hermione said, confused.
"You had to be there," Ernie said, waving his hand. "It was really creepy."
"Ernie is right," Harry said. In his current state of emotionlessness, it was plain to see: if they didn't do something about Zabini now, things would only get worse. "We should teach Zabini that prodding a badger isn't very smart."
"Harry!" Hermione said, shocked. "Do you really mean to curse him?"
Harry shook his head. "Not anything to hurt him," he said. "Just embarrass him. But he's not the only one. There's also the matter of Ronald Weasley."
"You mean that ginger idiot in Gryffindor?" Justin said. "What has he ever done? He doesn't even hold his wand right."
Neville said, "You mean you missed it? He was a right prat to Hermione in Charms today."
"No, no, no," Hermione said. "You're not using me as a reason to do something like that!"
Harry frowned, confused. "Don't you want him to leave you alone?" he said.
"Whatever we do, that boy will probably fail school," she said. "I don't think he's worth bothering with."
"That's a point," Ernie said. "That idiot doesn't stand a chance at Hogwarts, if you look at it. He'll be Justin's brothers' problem next year."
Justin scowled. "Wasn't that an insult?"
Ernie waved him off. "Zabini, on the other hand, isn't going anywhere. So we should deal with him. It's like Harry said, he's gotta learn not to mess with Puffs."
Looking around at his peers, Harry saw that Susan, Justin, Wayne and Hannah were nodding in agreement. Neville and Cerie looked like they wished they didn't have to, but could see the reason. Megan was staring at her food again. Hermione said, "I really don't like this idea … but I won't snitch on another Puff."
"Megan, what do you think?" Harry asked.
The girl was startled, practically jumping in her seat. "What do I think?" she repeated. Everyone was staring at her. She looked around at all of their faces, her own face the picture in the dictionary under uncertainty. "It doesn't really have anything to do with me," she said quietly.
"Don't be like that!" Hannah said. "Of course it has to do with you. You're a badger, girl!"
She didn't look like much of a badger, though. She looked more like a mouse. She said, "I don't want him to cause any more trouble … but I don't think we should cause any trouble, either."
Susan put up her hand to forestall any of the others from saying anything, and she said, "We won't be causing trouble. We will be preventing future trouble."
Megan looked at Susan. Susan smiled reassuringly. Megan nodded. "Okay," she said. "Let's curse the git."
"There's that Puff pride!" Hannah exclaimed, beaming at Megan. The others were all cheering for her, too – even Hermione, Harry saw, looked pretty happy.
Collectively, the Puffs of first year decided to not decide on anything straight away. They would all think about it for the rest of the day, and meet up after dinner to figure out who had the most devious (but not actually painful) plan to embarrass (but not completely humiliate) Zabini – parenthetical clauses by Hermione. They still had Potions after lunch, and then about four hours to put their badger-shit crazy minds to the task, so there was plenty of time for their hard-working minds to come up with something spectacular (but not overblown).
Harry wanted to do it without asking Becca for help. It would earn him some credibility as a viable disciple of Our Lady the Saint of Mischief, after all. If he just went to Becca and asked her to help him prank Zabini, she probably would have done – but it wouldn't raise her opinion of him. So he wanted it to be a firsties-only project. He wanted to prove to Becca and Tosha and Frankie that they had the right stuff to continue the legacy of Our Lady.
It would not, Harry realized, be easy.
First of all, not a one of them knew a single jinx (and Harry still hadn't borrowed that book from Becca). This limited their options to Ernie's dungbombs and whatever they could come up with on their own – and Ernie's dungbombs weren't enough, not on their own.
During Potions, Harry, once again working in isolation, had to put his mind to his work and put thoughts of pranking aside. BrewPotion, his mental program, was able to tell him what would be the result of any particular sequence of ingredients. So his first step was just to look at the recipe provided and run it through BrewPotion. The result of it, he could see, would definitely cure foot fungus, and probably most any other kind of body-related fungus, including yeast infections (although it would have to be applied topically, which might be an issue). However, before he set to work he tried tinkering a bit with the parameters to see if he could get any other interesting results to come out. After running a few dozen simulations in his mind, Harry concluded that it was possible with only minimal alteration to the recipe to create a potion that would cure fungus in only a few minutes, as opposed to taking hours for it to work. So, Harry raised his hand.
"You have a question, Mr. Potter?" the professor said darkly.
"Professor, I was wondering if I could make use of a pair of boomslang eyes?"
The professor's face was a blank mask other than his eyes narrowing a fraction. "Are you planning to change the recipe again, Mr. Potter?" he asked.
"Yes, Professor," Harry said evenly.
Professor Snape glared at Harry. Harry glared back. All of the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first years looked back and forth between them. Harry felt a bead of sweat roll down from his temple. Professor Snape's eyes ever so slowly narrowed further as he glared at the young student. Seconds passed that felt much longer. Finally, he said, "Are you aware of the risks of adding such a volatile ingredient?"
"Yes, Professor."
"Have you thought of how you will prepare the eyes, and at what stage you will add them?"
"Yes, Professor."
"Have considered the different level of heat that you will need to apply to the potion at the critical stage?"
Now that the professor had said that, Harry did. Good thing, too, since it would have exploded if he didn't reduce the heat after adding the eyes. He would have to make a note to patch BrewPotion when he found the time. Trying not to imagine the fungal burns (yes, magical fungi can cause fungal burns) that would have resulted, he said, "Yes, Professor."
The professor stared at him again for another long while. Harry realized that this entire time – almost a minute – the teacher had not blinked. There was no clock in the room, but Harry would swear that he heard a second hand ticking its way slowly around one. Finally, Professor Snape said, "The boomslang eyes are on the shelf there. You may use only two."
"Thank you, Professor."
Harry's potion went smoothly enough, considering, but frankly by the end of the brew he was wondering if it had been worth it. True, his potion was better than the one Professor Snape had written on the board, but it was also considerably more difficult to actually brew. At one point Harry realized why it was so cold in the Potions lab when a drop of sweat fell into his cauldron. As he watched the droplet fall from his face into the potion, Harry thought about all of the things he hadn't done, and all of the people he had never told he loved, and prepared himself for the worst. Nothing happened, though, and he breathed a huge sigh of relief that made many of the nearby students nervous. Sweat, he would later learn, has no magically significant properties other than making brewing potions uncomfortable when you're covered in it.
Since Harry's modified formula required him to lower the heat and let the potion simmer ever so slightly, rather than boil turbulently like the other students' potions, Harry ended up being the very last person to finish brewing, quite in contrast to the previous Potions class. When he took the vial up to Professor Snape, the man took it from his hand much more cautiously than he had on Monday.
Professor Snape turned it over to check the viscosity. Then he put it in front of his desk light to better see the color and check for precipitate out of suspension. Then he unstoppered it and took a whiff of it.
"Potter," Professor Snape said slowly. "Where did you find this recipe?"
"I didn't find it anywhere, sir," Harry said. "It just occurred to me that the boomslang eyes would increase the speed of effect of the potion without any negative side-effects. It was a no-brainer to add them."
Professor Snape stared long at Harry once more. "I will know if you are lying, Mr. Potter," he said.
"Professor, it occurs to me that if that were true, then you wouldn't need to say it." Harry did not smile, but it was a close thing.
Professor Snape blinked. Harry thought the corner of the professor's lip might have twitched. Then again, Harry had imagined things before. "Indeed," he said. "A no-brainer that just occurred to you. Is that correct?"
"Yes, Professor," Harry said. He wished that he had phrased his explanation without the colloquialism, now that the words were being repeated back to him by his professor. He stood there stonily.
"I will need to test your concoction more thoroughly before I grade it," the professor said after another long pause. "You may leave."
"Professor," Harry said with a slight nod, and left.
Hermione was sitting in the dark subterranean hall reading by wandlight what Harry recognized as her enchanting book. He saw that she was almost at the end of it. "Learn anything fun?" he said.
Hermione was startled. Apparently she hadn't heard him come out of the classroom. "Oh, yes!" she said. "But more importantly, what was that all about?"
"Hm?"
"Boomslang eyes are very dangerous ingredients, Harry," she said. "And they don't have any anti-fungal properties. So why –?"
"Ah – that," he said. "No, I didn't add them for anti-fungal properties. The potion was already quite good at that. But it was a slow-acting potion. I thought that if I had a great big fungus on my foot, I'd want it gone right away, not a few hours later. Boomslang eyes can quicken catalyzation."
"I see," she said. "It turns it into a quick-acting potion." She thought it about it for a considerable length longer, and Harry was about to ask her if she was ever going to stand up so they could get going, when she said, "But how did you know to add them?"
Harry frowned. He thought he would sound very strange if he explained that he had a computer program running in his brain that brewed potions for him. He had lied to Hermione often enough that he could lie to her again, now, he supposed. He wanted to be honest with her – he wanted to be trustworthy to her – but he was afraid that she would think he was mad if he told her the truth. "If you just think about the Sixteen Laws, and the properties of the ingredients, it's easy to figure out what will do what," he said.
Hermione shook her head. She shut her book, put it in her bag, and accepted Harry's hand to help her up. She held on to his hand, staring at it. "You're really special," she said after a while. She looked up at him with a watery-eyed grin. "Do you know that? I don't know why you bother with me, sometimes."
"Come off it," he said. He hesitated for a while, then said, "I think you're really special, too."
He watched a tear trail slowly down her cheek. It fell to the stone. He hugged her. He said, "You know, if that Weasley guy says anything else to you, I am going to curse him."
"Don't. But thanks. How did you know I was still upset about that?"
"I didn't," he said. "But I'm still upset about it."
She kissed his cheek.
It was a long, quiet, comfortable walk back to the Entrance Hall.
"Do you want to check out that courtyard?" Harry asked. "The one they mentioned on Monday."
"It sounded ever so lovely," she said.
The courtyard, when they found it, really was lovely, albeit slightly dilapidated. It was also, unfortunately, massively crowded. Apparently the Hufflepuff first years were far from the first ones to discover it: rather, it seemed like a favorite place for couples to go. Every time they looked behind a pillar or rock, hoping for there to be a nice place to sit, it was either covered in gravel or there was a couple, or a few friends, already occupying it. There were dozens of cozy places to sit, but they were all being sat in. "This is dreadful," Harry said, disheartened. "I mean it's a lovely place but it's too crowded."
Hermione was looking around, too. "I would say let's check out the Quidditch Pitch lawn, but it looks like it's being used, too."
Looking towards the Pitch, Harry saw that there were indeed several ant-like figures zipping around above it. "There's definitely seating, though," he said. Actually, he was rather interested in seeing what the fliers were doing. "I'd like to see them fly. Come on, let's go."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "This is going to be a thing, now, isn't it?" she said.
"Thing?"
"You, dragging me off to Quidditch-related stuff."
"I hope so," he said. "I really do want to be Seeker. And you'll be watching all of my games, of course."
"Of course. Why, again? I mean, why do you want to be the team Seeker?"
They were far enough away from the courtyard, and still plenty far from the Quidditch Pitch, that he felt that he could speak freely about it. "I have a confession," he said.
"Oh?"
"I lied this morning. I didn't want everyone else to know this, but … You're going to keep this secret, right?"
"If you want it to be a secret," she said, "Then it'll be a secret. Whatever it is."
Harry nodded. He was glad he had people he could trust in his life. "Thank you," he said. "I didn't learn how to fly over the summer."
"You don't know how to fly?" Hermione said. "How do you expect to be Seeker, then? Try outs are next week!"
Harry shook his head. "That's not it. I mean, I didn't learn over the summer. I learned how to fly last night."
She stared at him in shock. "What do you mean?"
Even though he did trust her, that was no reason to go around incriminating other people. So he said, "I borrowed someone's broom and snuck out last night." That was true, actually. "I was really safe, don't worry." That part was a lie. "I'm not going to do it again, if you don't want me to." Why would he even say that? Of course he was going to do it again! He only had a week to become the best flier in Hufflepuff! He didn't have to say that! What was he thinking!
Hermione was shaking her head. "I'm amazed," she said. "I mean, how did you even find the time?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't need a lot of sleep," he said. Actually, thinking about it, Harry was pretty amazed that he was still awake. That Auror grade Power-Through Potion really worked wonders. A single sip and he was still wide awake, twelve hours later.
"Didn't it occur to you how reckless it was to go out there by yourself? I mean, flying a broom alone in the middle of the night would be dangerous enough if you knew how to fly!"
"Did I say I was alone?" Harry asked. No, he hadn't, not exactly. He had only implied it. Implications can be taken back easily enough. "I was with an older student."
"Who?"
Harry looked at her carefully. "I'll tell you because you promised to keep it secret," he reminded her. "It was Becca Albright. You remember Sonny Albright? That's his sister. She's really nice."
Hermione nodded slowly. "And does she know how to fix a broken neck?" she asked pointedly.
"Er – I didn't ask," Harry said. "But really, we were very safe."
"Did you wear your helmet and everything?" Hermione asked.
Harry blinked. "Hermione, people don't wear helmets on broomsticks."
"Well, maybe they should!" she suddenly yelled. "I don't know how you could do something so stupid, Harry! You could have died, do you know that? Then what would I do?"
"Hermione," Harry said slowly. "I am going to play Quidditch. And you are going to be at my games, aren't you?"
But she didn't say another word on the way to the Pitch, or on their way up the stairs to the bleachers, which turned out to consist of a rather odd assortment of chairs. After they sat down and had watched the students flying around for a while (it was a group of Gryffindors who seemed to be getting ready for their own try outs), Hermione said, "It's completely mad."
"What is?"
"I'm terrified just sitting here, we're so high up. And those lunatics, look at them! They're trying to get themselves killed."
Harry shook his head in realization. "Hermione," he said gently. "What you're describing is a fear of heights. You're perfectly safe sitting here. And that's not just grass under them, there are spells on it. It's very rare for people to get seriously injured in Quidditch. Well, not very rare, but it doesn't happen at every game." You really have a way with words, he thought. "It's as safe as football."
"I know that," she said. "But it still seems mad."
"I'm a lot better than those guys," Harry said. "If one of them is going to be Seeker for Gryffindor, they're going to lose every time. I can be really good at this, Hermione."
"I really just don't understand why you want to play at all," she said. "You're not sporty, Harry. You're more like me."
"I think that I can be sporty," he said. "I think it'll be really good for me."
She rolled her eyes. "What do you even mean by that?" she said. "I mean, it's not even exercise, really."
"It is exercise, first of all," Harry said. "It's pretty exhausting, actually."
"Fine," she said. "But it still isn't you, is it?"
He sighed. "It's totally me, Hermione."
"I just don't see it."
"Who do you see?" he suddenly snapped. He hadn't meant to snap at her, but he had. "Look at me. Who am I?"
In her eyes, he could see that she understood. "You're Harry Potter," she said distantly. "The Boy-Who-Lived. The wunderkind of the wizarding world."
Harry leaned back in his chair and sighed. "I'm sorry for snapping," he said.
"It's all right. I get it, Harry. You go around wearing this crown of thorns … I forgot about it, and I let myself get cut."
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I really do love flying," he said. "It's not like it's a great sacrifice or anything. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm going to love it. But I don't really have any choice, either, do I? Because don't you remember what Ernie said this morning?"
"Yeah, I remember," she said.
Harry repeated it anyway. "He said of course I'll make the team – of course Harry Potter will make the team, because Harry Potter is a legend."
"I know," she said. "I get it, all right?"
They were quiet for a while, watching the Gryffindor fliers. Eventually, Harry said, "I really need your support in this, Hermione. It'll drive me nuts knowing that you're against this."
She nodded. "You have my support," she said. "I still think Quidditch is mad … but you're mad already. So you have my support."
He snorted. "Thanks."
A pause. Then Hermione said, "You're really better than those Gryffindors?"
Harry grinned.
Pretty soon, Hermione got her book out and went back to reading. Harry continued staring at the fliers, first with interest, and then, after realizing that there really wasn't anything to learn from them, just to have something to look at as he thought about something else: Zabini.
Harry felt a bit bad about it. Not for plotting to embarrass Zabini – he felt good about that – but for not suggesting it the day before, after the boy had been such an wanker to Ernie. Harry realized that he should have had the idea himself when his friend was insulted. Instead, Ernie suggested it after Harry was insulted. Harry wondered if that made Ernie a better friend than he was. Harry remembered how he had just been weirded out by Ernie pretending to act calm, and had never thought to do anything to help him.
But the important thing, he supposed, was that they would be doing something now. And Harry had the beginnings of what he thought was a pretty good plan.
Hermione soon noticed that Harry was sitting there in a sort of trance. She could see his eyes darting around like someone in a fever dream. She said, "Harry?"
"Hm?"
"What are you doing, Harry?"
"Trying to come up with a potion," he said. He was running simulations in BrewPotion. They all kept exploding or melting the cauldron, though.
Hermione shook her head in amusement and went back to reading.
Harry scoffed in annoyance half an hour or so later. "I still don't know enough about potions," he said.
"What's wrong?"
"Well, I was able to figure out how to reverse the effects of the Boil-Cure and Foot Fungus Potions, to make them cause boils or cause foot fungus," he said. "But that's just gross, isn't it? So I don't really want to do that." Harry got out his text and started flipping through it. "The problem," he said, "Is that there's nothing really funny here. Cure scabs … cure the measels … whiten teeth –"
"They have a potion that whitens teeth?" Hermione said, shocked. "Let me see that."
"Haven't you already read this?" Harry said, amused.
"Not the whole thing, no. Wow, that's incredible. The muggles would pay a fortune for something like this."
Harry laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Oh, just listen to you. 'The muggles would pay a fortune.' You're already getting used to this world."
She shrugged. "I'm adaptable," she said. "Anyway, this is really incredible. It works in just minutes."
"Your teeth are already white. Give me my book back," he said, snatching it. "Let's see … various varnishes to protect wood … and metal … this one empties your stomach so you can eat more, that's lovely … oh, this is interesting."
"The Forgetfulness Potion," Hermione read over his shoulder. "Causes a person to forget to do something. Harry, it's definitely a fascinating potion, but I don't see how it could be used to play a prank on someone."
"What if we caused him to forget to put on his clothes before leaving his dorm?" Harry said with a smirk.
"That's disgusting. No."
Harry rubbed his chin. "No, you're right, I don't see how to use this potion for a prank, either. Unless forgetting your keys is a prank. But it might be good for other things. Especially if you modify it a bit. Hang on..." Following a hunch, he ran a few simulations. "You could make a potion that causes you to forget a whole day if you just add powedered black widow legs here instead of chameleon claws. Actually, with a little modification, I think you could make a potion to help you remember things in the past, or to later remember things that happen while the potion is in your system."
"That would be invaluable," Hermione realized. "People would kill for something like that."
Harry nodded. "It's a project for another day, though," he said. "Making someone have a madeleine episode isn't really a prank." He started flipping through the book again. "Here's something we could use! The Babbling Beverage: causes the drinker to babble incoherent nonsense."
"What does that mean? Like random words?"
Harry read further. "It's more like stringing together random facts," he said. "Like you might say something like 'the sky is blue and I love pie so the muggles landed on the moon and Elvis died.'"
"That could be amusing," Hermione said. "It wouldn't hurt him, just make him look silly."
Harry grinned, glad to have his friend on board. "We can modify it a bit," he said. "I think I can combine it with the remembering potion."
Hermione frowned. "We can't just give him an untested potion," she said. "That's dangerous, isn't it?"
"I think I can do it, though," Harry said. "I'll test it on myself first."
"Harry! You can't!" Hermione said, aghast.
"Hermione, that's how new potions are invented. They have to be tested on someone, so naturally the inventor takes them. Actually, if you think about it, it makes sense: you know that any potion you buy in the shop isn't going to kill you, because if it killed you then the brewer that invented it wouldn't be able to sell it, would he?"
Hermione's frown deepened. "That really doesn't sound very scientific," she said.
Harry waved off her concerns, however. "We're going to be enchanters, aren't we? Enchanters have to test their own products, too, you know. Every step you take forward is a risk, but that doesn't mean you should just wait around."
Hermione scowled outright. "I'm not standing in the way of progress, Harry. I'm just trying to prevent you from doing something mad."
"It'll be safe," he said. "Because you'll be there with me when I test it."
At dinner that evening, all of the Puffs seemed very excited to share their ideas. However, they diligently waited, keeping their mouths shut until dinner was over, and they were able to sneak of to the dungeon-level classroom where Harry and Hermione had spoken to Terry and Sonny two days before.
"Is this a good place for us to be?" Justin said. "I mean, we're in Slytherin territory, aren't we?"
"The basement level isn't Slytherin territory any more than the ground floor is Hufflepuff territory," Harry stated firmly. "We have every right to be here."
Susan grinned. "I agree with Harry. The Slytherins can't claim the whole dungeons as their turf. We can be here if we want to be here."
"That sounds really good, but ..." Wayne trailed off, looking around at the rather dark and creepy classroom they were in, illuminated only by the clinical white light of Harry and Hermione's Torch Light Charms. (Unlike the narrow beam of light given off by a regular Lumos, the Lumos Facis gave off light in all directions.) "It is a bit creepy down here, isn't it?"
"Ha!" Ernie laughed. "There's nothing creepy about this place. It is a bit filthy, though," he added, rubbing at some stain on the floor with his shoe.
Harry cleared his throat. "All right, let's sound off!"
They all looked at him in confusion. "What're you talking about, Harry?" Hannah asked.
"Oh, well I thought it might be fun if we all said something like a motto before these secret meetings. You know, to get us in the spirit of things."
Ernie scowled. "I'm not singing a song," he said.
"I was thinking," Harry said, "Of something like:
Hufflepuffs have more fun!
Hufflepuffs get shit done!
Never enough!
Puff Puff Puff!"
They were all staring at him like he was a raving lunatic. "I actually like it," Ernie said. "You're an idiot, but I like it."
"It's amazing!" Hannah said. "I love it!"
There being a general consensus, the group sounded off. Hermione changed the words to Hufflepuffs get things done, but it still counted.
"Now that the formalities are out of the way," Susan said with an eye roll. "How are we cursing Zabini?"
"I've got dungbombs," Ernie supplied. They all told him that he had said that earlier.
"We could slip him a potion at breakfast," Susan said. "There's a laxative potion, for example."
"Gross, Susan!" Hannah said. "You're so weird sometimes."
"I was thinking the same thing, actually," Harry said once he was pretty sure there were no more ideas forthcoming from the group.
"We're not making him shit himself at breakfast!" Hannah exclaimed. "That's so disgusting! I can't believe you would even suggest that! It's completely revolting. I mean, we're trying to prank Zabini, not make everyone in the Great Hall sick!"
"Er –" Harry said. "No, I mean, not a laxative potion."
"Oh," Hannah said.
"Yeah. Anyway. I was thinking about it before dinner and I've come up with a pretty great potion. Or rather a combination of two potions." Harry proceeded to explain his idea. Neville, Susan, Hannah, Ernie, Justin, Cerie and Hermione were nodding along. Wayne's eyes sort of just glazed over as he stared at something over Harry's shoulder. Megan was staring at Harry's knees, but he thought she understood. "I was flipping through my Potions book and I came across the Babbling Beverage. It makes people say all kinds of random nonsense for a few minutes. I was thinking, well that could be pretty hilarious, but it needs a bit more salt, you know? Then I thought I could combine the Babbling Beverage with a reversal of the Forgetfulness Potion targeted towards Zabini's early years – in other words, a potion that would make him remember his childhood. In theory, I believe this will cause him to say all kinds of embarrassing things about when he was a little kid."
Susan's eyes were shining. "Brilliant! And we combine that blend with a laxative potion, and –"
"No, no, NO!" Hannah exclaimed.
"Only joking, Hannah," Susan said, laughing.
"All right, so here's the breakdown," Harry said. "We have two potions to brew, one of which is experimental. Hermione, Neville and I will take care of that –"
"Me?" Neville said. "Harry, I'm not very good at potions."
"You're great at potions," Harry said. "You're just bad at dealing with spooky Professor Snape. You'll be great. Everyone else, put your heads together and come up with a delivery system. We need a way to get Zabini to drink this concoction. And remember, don't let anyone know about this."
Justin said, "All right, let's bring it in team!" and stuck out his hand. The muggleborns all stacked their hands on top of his, and then the others followed along too. They gave another chant of,
"Hufflepuffs have more fun!
Hufflepuffs get shit done!
Never enough!
Puff Puff Puff!" and threw their hands in the air with a cheer.
Harry took a moment to take in their happy, bright-eyed faces before they all filed out of the room.
Some notes:
Thanks for reading! And, as always, I appreciate feedback. Feel free to drop me a PM!
I would have posted this yesterday but ffn bugs strike again! Well, it's here now. Nice and meaty for ya, too!
Cheers!