A/N: First off: a huge thank you to everyone who's stuck with this story, despite my horrible updating habits! I'm glad so many of you liked the last chapter; I was worried that I went a bit overboard with the Harry-Dumbledore conversation. I also wanted to thank everyone that left me constructive criticism; it helps me a lot when people point out the inconsistencies and plot holes in my writing, especially since I plan on rewriting this fic. (Don't worry, not until after I've finished it! I know how frustrating it is when authors start a story over without finishing it first. I also know how frustrating it is when an author takes forever to update... I'm not going to make promises with that, but this story is NOT abandoned. It might take me a while between updates, but there will eventually be updates.) Anyway, here's the next chapter. Once again, my apologies for taking such a ridiculously long time to update.

Dozens of owls swooped into the Great Hall, heralding the arrival of the morning post. Harry, used to it after so many years of watching post owls flood the Great Hall every morning, ignored the commotion but looked up from his breakfast quickly, startled, when Viktor's owl, Vasili, landed in front of him. Offering the owl a bit of his toast, he quickly took the letter attached to his leg and opened it.

Neville, who was seated beside him, asked curiously, "Who's it from?"

"Just a friend," Harry replied absently, his attention focused on the letter in front of him. It was fairly short, but by Viktor's standards it was positively chatty.

Harry,

We are having an evening practice tomorrow. I will pick you up around 6, and we should be done by 10 at the latest. Don't worry about bringing anything- I think most of your things are still in your locker. You should have everything you need, but if not you can just borrow from me.

Also, a word of warning- we are thinking of 'unmasking' you at the next game, which is this Friday if I have the date right. We can wait until the one after that if you want, but we should do it soon. Volkov is about to burst with the effort of keeping you a secret from the press, and if we make him wait much longer I think he might have a coronary.

It's very quiet here without you making a mess and banging around in the kitchen... I think I miss the chaos. It will be nice when you are back, and this house does not seem so empty anymore.

Love,

Viktor

He smiled softly, refolding the letter and stuffing it into his pants pocket. For some reason the 'love, Viktor' at the end had given him a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. God, wasn't thata cliché. He was going soft or something; there was no other explanation, he wasn't even the romantic type... well, not much of one, at least. He definitely wasn't one for chocolates and poems and bouquets of a dozen red roses, and all that other mushy stuff that guys did for their girlfriends. Thankfully, Viktor wasn't much of a romantic, either, so he wouldn't have to worry too much about that kind of stuff. In Harry's opinion, relationships were difficult enough without adding in the stress of trying to 'do something special' for your significant other all the time. Things like that should be reserved for special occasions, or when some sucking up was needed to keep from being forced to sleep on the couch.

"Here, Harry," Neville murmured, handing him his schedule. "I hope we don't have any classes with the Slytherins..." he added, looking over his own schedule rather anxiously. Even with his newfound confidence in his abilities, courtesy of the DA, Neville still hated confrontations and everyone knew that he was one of the Slytherins' favorite targets.

"Looks like we've only got one with them, thank Merlin. Defense," Harry replied, glancing over Neville's shoulder at his schedule, which was much the same as Harry's. Neither of them were taking Potions, having failed to get an O on their OWLs in the subject, and most of the Gryffindors were in the same core classes, so those at least they were together in. The only real differences in their schedules were Neville's Herbology class, which Harry wasn't taking-he'd never been much of a fan of plants that could kill, eat, or otherwise maim you if you weren't careful. Neville was fascinated with them, though-he always seemed to have his nose buried in a book relating to the subject.

"Good," Neville said fervently, glad to hear that the majority of his classes wouldn't contain any of the Slytherins. "No more Malfoy!" After a beat, he added, "Well, except in Defense."

"Yeah," Harry added, "No more Snape, either."

"Thank Merlin," Neville said, glancing over at the staff table where Snape was sitting in all his yellow-toothed, greasy-haired, big-nosed glory. Suppressing a shudder, the slightly pudgy boy turned back around and muttered, "I think I've just lost my appetite."

Harry grinned. "Yeah, Snape'll do that to you, won't he? Can you imagine sitting up at the staff table with him for every meal? You'd probably starve to death after a while, what with him constantly putting you off your food."

Neville snorted, pulling a face. "I feel bad for all of the Professors up there..." Harry outright laughed at that, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the edge of the table.

"Me too."

The two of them finished breakfast quickly and left the Hall to go get their books from the dormitory. They'd decided earlier to just leave them up there and come back for them after breakfast-without their schedules, they had no way of knowing which books they needed to bring with them, and it just didn't make any sense to go traipsing around with a bunch of books they didn't even need.

Harry and Neville walked up to the Gryffindor common room in relative silence, making good use of the numerous secret passageways (i.e. shortcuts, although if you didn't know how to navigate them correctly, they could turn out to be a lot longer than the 'official' route itself) that cut the distance they had to walk nearly in half. One such passageway even somehow prevented you from having to go up a flight of stairs, even though the entrance and exit of it were on two different floors. Harry still hadn't quite figured out the mechanics of that one, despite years of wondering about how it was possible.

They collected their books for their first classes-Charms, Transfiguration, and, in Neville's case, Herbology-and headed back downstairs in the direction of Professor Flitwick's classroom, hoping that they wouldn't run into any 'trouble' along the way. Luck wasn't with them on this particular day, though, and they had only just reached the end of the corridor that Professor Flitwick's room was located on when Malfoy, flanked by his two brainless cronies Crabbe and Goyle, rounded the other corner and spotted them. With a sneer, Malfoy started towards them.

"Hey, Potter! How come you're buddying up to Longbottom of all people? Where're your little friends? Having a little tiff with the mudblood and the blood traitor?" he drawled with a smug look on his face, like he'd just said something exceptionally clever and was proud as a peacock of it.

Harry shot the blond-haired boy a cold look and snapped, "Bugger off, Malfoy. Why don't you go harp on Weasley and Granger? I'm sure they'd make for a bit more fun."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "Ah, so the Golden Trio is a bit fractured of late. What happened, Potter? Did they get tired of having to cover their eyes every time they looked at you?"

"Malfoy, just because you're so painful to look at that your friends have to shield their eyes doesn't mean that mine need to do the same. You'd think with all the money you have that your parents could afford for you to have gotten some medical intervention for that, but I guess not."

"Well at least I have parents," Malfoy retorted, a flush rising in his cheeks at the insinuation that he was ugly, of all things.

Unable to think of anything to say to that, Harry just clenched his jaw and shoved his way past the other youth, stalking down the hall towards the Charms classroom. Neville followed him with a deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes, casting anxious glances back at the three Slytherins.

"What, did I hit a nerve there, Potter?" Malfoy called after him, his smirk now firmly back in place. The 'ugly' comment seemed to have been forgotten in the wake of finding something that genuinely pissed Harry off.

Harry whirled around and shot him a ferocious glare, one even more intimidating now that he no longer had to wear his glasses. "Shut the bloody hell up, Malfoy, or I'll hex you so badly you won't be able to see straight for a week," he snarled, drawing his wand with such speed that no one had even realized what he was doing until his wand was already leveled at Malfoy's head, dead center between his eyes.

"Give me a reason. I fucking dare you," Harry instructed the other boy coldly.

Malfoy eyed him nervously, the smirk vanishing. "That sounds like an invitation, Scarhead," he said coolly, the frightened expression in his eyes belying his even tone.

Harry stared at him icily for a long moment before Neville touched his shoulder and said quietly, "C'mon, Harry, just ignore him. We're going to be late." Clenching his jaw, Harry lowered his wand and shoved it back into his pocket. He turned and stormed off down the corridor, Neville following a couple of steps behind him. Malfoy and his goons watched the two of them go with confused looks on their faces - the encounter hadn't been anything like they were expecting it to be, and they were having a tough time understanding why.

The day passed mostly uneventfully after the run-in in the hallway, thankfully. Anyone who might have felt the need to poke and prod at Harry (which would've been akin to poking a dragon with a stick, what with the rapidly darkening mood he was in) kept their distance and there were no more confrontations. Harry was both glad of and frustrated by that fact; on one hand, he didn't want anyone getting up in his face and sawing on his already frayed nerves, but on the other he was at the point where he would've gladly welcomed the opportunity to hex the daylights out of someone. He wasn't an overly violent person, but even so it would've been a good stress reliever.

That evening after dinner, Harry went to the library to see if the school had any more information about Cirens than what he already knew. Which, truthfully, wasn't much. Walking into the quiet, nearly empty room (it was the start of term, after all, and most of the students-with the exceptions of the fifth, sixth, and seventh years, who were slammed mercilessly with assignments even at the start of term-hadn't received any homework yet, not to mention that most people avoided coming to the library if they could help it since Madam Pince wasn't exactly the friendliest of sorts) he headed straight for the section labeled 'Magical Creatures'. Madam Pince glared at him as he passed by her desk, but he ignored the dark look he was getting and slipped into the first row of books, out of the grouchy librarian's line of sight.

Walking slowly down the row, he scanned the titles of the books, looking for likely candidates to have the information he was looking for. It took a while, but eventually, after a lot of fruitless searching, he stumbled upon a thick, leather-bound tome with gold lettering scrawled across the cover-Rare Humanoids And Everything You Could Possibly Want To Know About Them.

Bring the thick book over to a table half-hidden behind a row of books on Transfiguration spells gone wrong, he flipped it open to the index page and scanned the old, dusty page quickly. Spying the word 'Ciren', he glanced at the number beside it and quickly turned to the specified page. He was disappointed to find that it was only a single page in length, and not even a full one, at that. Whatever he was, he obviously wasn't very popular.

Squinting a little in an effort to see the small, spidery-looking print, he read:

'The Ciren, a creature that has not been seen since the days of the Founders, was undoubtedly one of the wizarding world's least-documented humanoids. Often mistaken by muggles to be of either angelic or demonic nature, depending on who it was that sighted them, Cirens were winged human-creature hybrids. While mostly human, they carried traits that were decidedly animalistic-the most prominent feature of which was their wings, which often grew to have a nearly twenty foot wingspan to support the weight of their bodies in flight. These wings were seen to come in a myriad of colors, most of the neutral spectrum-shades of black, white, grey, or brown. Strangely enough, though, these wings did not enable the Cirens that possessed them to fly for any great amount of time or at any significant height. It was-and still is-speculated upon why exactly these creatures were in possession of such appendages if they were not capable of using them in any extended form of flight. There are a number of plausible explanations for these wings. Some researchers believe that these wings were merely part of the mating process, to be used in a manner not unlike a peacock's. Others are not convinced. There are a myriad of possible uses-for example, they might have been used to identify a hierarchy of sorts. Cirens were never documented as having a strict hierarchy like werewolves possess, but the possibility is certainly still there.'

He frowned down at the text, running a hand over his face in frustration. Sure, speculation was all well and good, and it did bring up some interesting thoughts, but he was looking for cold hard facts. The few meager sources he'd found so far hadn't really told him much more than he already knew, and none of it was anything he couldn't have guessed or at least figured out eventually on his own. At least the book explained why he'd had such a difficult time finding information on Cirens; although, once again, it hadn't told him anything he hadn't already suspected.

Sighing, he shut the book and returned it to its place on the shelf. He searched for a while longer, but after scouring the entire section devoted to magical creatures and finding absolutely nothing, he gave up for the time being. He would've checked the Restricted Section as well, but Madam Pince's suspicious eyes felt like they were burning a hole in his back with the strength of her stare and he knew there was no way he'd be able to sneak inside under her watch. He would have to come back after curfew, under the invisibility cloak, and have a look around then.

With one last frustrated glance at Madam Pince (who glared back wordlessly, eyes steely and--if he was reading her expression right--just a tad smug, like she knew exactly what he was thinking and was taking great satisfaction in thwarting him in his search), he left the library, heading back to Gryffindor Tower.

It seemed to take an incredibly long time for all of the his dorm mates to fall asleep. He didn't dare leave while they were still awake--he didn't doubt that Ron would rat him out in a heartbeat if he caught him sneaking out in the middle of the night--and even after the sounds of movement and shifting blankets stopped, he lay in his bed for a bit longer.

Once he was relatively certain that everyone else was asleep, he slipped out of bed and quickly switched his pajama bottoms for jeans, sliding his wand into his back pocket. Grabbing a random shirt from the floor by his feet, he pulled it on and then knelt by his trunk, opening the lid as quietly as he could. Rooting through the mess of clothes, books, and miscellaneous items inside, he eventually managed to locate the Marauder's Map and his invisibility cloak. Lowering the lid gently, he started towards the door. After only a couple of steps, though, he reached back to pull the privacy curtains back around his bed to disguise the fact that there was no one in it. He doubted anyone would notice his absence, but it paid to be cautious, especially when someone was doing something they shouldn't be.

Once outside the door, he pulled his cloak on. The Common Room was most likely deserted on account of the late hour, but Harry himself had spent all hours of the night down there enough times to know better than to take it for granted. He made sure that he was completely covered before descending the stairs into the large room, allowing himself a sigh of relief when it proved to be empty. He crossed the room and exited the portrait hole, pulling out the Map as he stepped into the corridor and the portrait swung back into place behind him.

After a quick scan of the aged parchment to make sure he wouldn't be having any run-ins with Filch or Mrs. Norris, he set off down the corridor at a fast pace. The quicker he got this done, the more sleep he would get, and the more sleep he got the better. He had a feeling his teammates weren't going to go easy on him the next day.

The library was dark and silent when he entered it, and it remained that way as he bypassed all of the regular bookshelves and headed straight for the back of the room. A quick spell granted him access to the Restricted Section, and he left the door opened a crack; all the better to help him make a fast getaway if it became necessary.

Murmuring a quiet, "Lumos," he started walking down the first row of books, using the light from his wand tip to scan the titles for anything that looked promising. By some stroke of luck, he didn't even have to walk down the entire first row before he found what he was looking for. A thick tome covered in a remarkably large amount of dust caught his eye, the tiny set of wings imprinted on the spine of the book sparking his interest.

Pulling it from the shelf and propping it up on his left forearm, he opened it carefully, prepared to slam it shut again if it started screaming or tried to attack him as books housed in the Restricted Section were sometimes wont to do. Fortunately, it did no such thing. It just laid there quietly, doing nothing that could be considered unusual for a book, and after a moment Harry, feeling a little foolish for being so cautious over a book despite knowing that it was a wise course of action, deemed it safe to start reading.

It took a lot of page-flipping, as there was no index and the chapters didn't seem to have any titles (nor did the book, for that matter), but eventually he found the section he was looking for. It started off slowly, reiterating everything he'd learned from the other book he had read, but he devoured the words nonetheless, eager to learn more about himself. This was more than likely the only reading material he would be able to find about Cirens--at least, the only reading material that could give him actual information--and he'd be damned if he was going to put it back on the shelf and leave before he'd read everything it had to offer.

Propping his chin up on his hand, he continued to read late into the night.

At breakfast the next morning, Harry received another message. This one, though, arrived on the leg of a barn owl he didn't recognize and the handwriting on the outside of it was unfamiliar. Frowning, he untied the letter from the owl's leg and unrolled the small scroll. Bracing his elbows on the table, he read:

Potter,

You'd better be coming to practice tonight. We need our other Beater, you know. In case Viktor hasn't already told you, he'll be coming to pick you up at 6. Don't keep him waiting too long, I won't excuse lateness no matter how far you need to travel to get here.

Volkov

Harry rolled his eyes. Yep, that definitely sounded like Volkov. Tucking the newly-arrived mail into his book bag, he went back to eating, shooting a reassuring smile across the table to Neville, who smiled back a bit hesitantly. The dark-haired boy had been watching him read the scroll with a small frown, obviously wondering if it was bad news. Harry took a big bite of his toast, relishing the flavor of the thick layer of jam spread over the top of it, and leaned forward to rest his head on an upraised palm as he chewed. Keeping himself upright took effort, and it was a bit too early in the morning--especially since he'd been holed up in the Restricted Section for hours the night before, exhausting the collection of books on magical beings--for anything to do with expending energy.

Blinking wearily, he took another bite.

After the reminder that he would be seeing Viktor again in only a few hours, the rest of the day seemed to pass painfully slowly. McGonagall assigned them an essay on the different varieties of shape-changing spells (a full roll of parchment at the minimum, due by Friday), the DADA Professor started them on a huge project (which mainly consisted of researching a variety of different spells and creating arguments both for and against the practicality of using them in battle), and Flitwick gave them a twelve-inch essay due at the end of the week. By the time dinner came around (and, by extension, Viktor's arrival) Harry was beginning to think that there was some sort of conspiracy among all of the Professors about assigning him massive amounts of homework as closely as possible to practice and game days. He supposed he would find out if his theory was right when he next had a practice.

He hardly ate anything the entire meal, knowing that high speeds and a full stomach didn't mix well. Finally, at ten to six, Harry couldn't stand the waiting anymore and started to get up from the table, planning on going to wait for Viktor in the Entrance Hall.

Just as he was about to stand up, though, a tall, lean figure appeared in the doorway. The Hall began to buzz with whispers and speculation as Viktor set a course for the Gryffindor table. Someone a few seats down from Harry asked loudly, "What's Viktor Krumdoing here?" Eyes throughout the Great Hall darted towards Hermione, obviously expecting the area of the table where she was sitting to be Viktor's destination.

No one did a very good job of hiding their surprise and confusion when Viktor walked right past her like he hadn't even seen her and continued down the table to where Harry was at.

A/N: ... I'm a horrible person, leaving it on a cliffhanger like that.