Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series in its print, e-book, audio book, or film versions. The Harry Potter series belongs to its respective author (J.K. Rowling), publishing company (Scholastic and its divisions), and film company (Warner Bros.). I am not making any monetary or other equivalent profit from this. Everything that is not recognizable as belonging to the aforementioned is mine, please respect that.
Source: the base of this story is drawn from this text-
Rowling, J K, and Mary GrandPré. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. 1998. Print.
and this film-
Heyman, David, Steven Kloves, Chris Columbus, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Richard Griffiths, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw, Julie Walters, John Seale, Richard Francis-Bruce, John Williams, Mark Radcliffe, Michael Barnathan, Duncan Henderson, and J K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Burbank, Calif: Warner Home Video, 2002.
Summary: AU. Harry Potter is not the Boy-Who-Lived, but his life isn't dull. The Potter Family has big problems; Voldemort and his cronies keep attacking his friend Neville, the Boy-Who-Lived; his other friendships are often troubled, and his schoolwork and other studies are difficult. Not to mention that he has Gryffindor Quidditch at school and International Youth Quidditch Camp in the summer. Yeah, Harry's life is never dull. Oh, and he might have discovered a cult in Hogwarts.
A/N: Sorry I didn't post at all last month! Life is busy right now. I was happy to get several reviews for chapter 9 though, so a very special thanks to MSupernatural, HoneyBear84, Ern Estine 13624, littlesprout, and iamladyliberty! Also, thanks to all my readers. I hope you enjoy the chapter!
The Curator Chronicles:
Year I – Cracking the Pot
By: HowlingRain
Chapter 10: Nimbus 2000
Harry sat anxiously at the breakfast table Sunday morning, wondering if he'd get a reply from his dad. The owls flew in, the owls flew out, and there was no mail for him. He wasn't sure if that should make him more nervous or not.
Quietly picking at his food while his roommates chatted, he didn't notice someone was approaching him until their hand landed on his shoulder and he almost jumped out of his seat.
"Whoa, steady there, Harry," said Oliver Wood.
Harry gave a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry, you surprised me."
"Yes, well, do try to pay attention to your surroundings when we're on the pitch, all right? Here," Wood held out a worn, red leather bound book with faded gold lettering that read: Quidditch Through the Ages. "I want you to read this before our first practice on Friday. I know you probably already know some of it, but if you're going to play Quidditch, you have to really know Quidditch," Wood said exuberantly. "Personally, I know the thing by heart."
"Oh," Harry said, taking the book, "Okay. Thanks."
"No problem! I'll see you Friday then." Wood gave Harry's shoulder a friendly squeeze and left whistling a jaunty tune.
Harry looked down at the book he was left with. It had Property of Oliver Wood penned inside the cover and was written by someone named Kennilworthy Whisp. Flipping to the table of contents, he saw that it was about the history of Quidditch as well as the rules and such. He though he knew most of the stuff about the rules, but he'd never read about the history of the sport before.
Turning to the first page, Harry began to read.
••••••••
Quidditch Through the Ages turned out to be the perfect distraction for Harry that week. His dad still hadn't written back to him Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, but every time he started to feel anxious about it he could bury himself in the Quidditch book and forget all about the matter. By Thursday he'd read it three times.
Friday morning he went down to breakfast with the red book in hand, fully determined not to think about his dad's lack of reply. He was in the midst of a chapter talking about Snidget-hunting and the invention of the Golden Snitch and thinking about how the little Golden Snidgets reminded him of Mercier's Jabberknolls and the way the blue birds were sometimes hunted for their feathers, when a trio of owls flew in carrying a large package with the rest of the post. Almost every eye in the Hall found its way to the package and the birds carrying it, conversations stopped, and everyone waited to see whom the package would go to and what was inside.
Harry too was watching the owls' progress. He realized they were flying toward the Gryffindors and looked up and down his table to see if anyone seemed to be expecting the package. Then a thunk came from in front of him. He blinked at the long package lying across his plate of eggs as well as Neville's porridge and Dean's biscuit with bacon, eggs, sausage, and cheese stacked inside. No one seemed to mind that their breakfast was being assaulted though; they were too curious about the package to care.
"What is it, Harry?" Dean asked, poking the wrapping with one finger.
"I don't know..." The package was cylindrical and seemed to be wrapped in several layers of brown paper. It was impossible to tell what it was just by looking at it.
"Oh, there's a letter too, here," Neville handed over a letter that had been attached to the part of the package lying in his breakfast.
Harry took it, wiped off the porridge stuck to it, and flipped it over. He instantly recognized the handwriting on the envelope as belonging to his dad. Nervously, he opened it, worrying about what it would say about his mother and curious about what the package was.
Harry,
Ta-dah!
It's your present for becoming Gryffindor Seeker, a Nimbus 2000! As for the rule about first years not being allowed brooms, don't worry. I wrote Professor McGonagall and she okayed it. I'm really proud of you, son. You should have seen Sirius when I told him. He turned into Padfoot and ran around the office with his tail wagging so fast he knocked over all his paperwork, he was so excited. You can count on us both coming to see your first match. But remember, just because you have a fast broom doesn't mean you should go wild with it. Be careful.
I'm sorry about your mum being gone a lot. I suppose I've been gone a rather lot too with work being as crazy as it is. Maybe you can also think of the broom as an apology from me?
Anyway, I'll see you at the match. So practice hard, but don't forget to do your homework!
Love,
Dad
Harry gaped at the letter. It hadn't said much about his mother, but that didn't really matter because his dad sent him a Nimbus Two Thousand. A Nimbus Two Thousand! It was the best racing broom on the market! He looked up to find most of the table staring at him. Not knowing what to say, he quickly began unwrapping the parcel, tearing the paper wherever it refused to easily come undone. A short minute later, the Nimbus was lying there on the table, in full view of the Great Hall.
Awestruck, Harry stared at the broom, taking in the carefully clipped brush and sleekly polished handle with Nimbus 2000 on the upper grip in gold lettering. Suddenly Oliver Wood was at his side. The older boy wore a deliriously happy smile and muttered something under his breath. Then he fainted but was caught by the group that had gathered behind him.
Before he realized what was happening, Harry found himself being jostled about by an increasingly large crowd of Gryffindors all trying to get a look at the new broom. With everyone leaning over and around him to get a look at the broom he felt trapped and his breathing became tight gasps. He closed his eyes to try and escape the sensation, but it didn't seem to be any use.
"Enough!" someone said loudly. "I said stop that! You're all acting like toddlers! Go back to your seats! It's just a broomstick!"
Harry felt the pressure of people around him ease and opened his eyes. Looking up, he found Percy standing near him, flashing his Prefect's badge like it was a shield to ward off the Quidditch-crazed mass of Gryffindors.
"It's not just any broomstick!" Wood argued. Momentarily, Harry wondered when the Quidditch Captain had woken up, and why he'd fainted in the first place. "It's a Nimbus Two Thousand!"
"Yes, I know what it is," Percy returned, "and I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to pant over it at practice, but not here!"
A chuckle rose from some of the older students and people started returning to their seats, though they still spoke avidly about the broomstick. Percy remained standing, watching them obey his will with a proud expression. Harry relaxed a little, but he still felt uncomfortable after being surrounded. As the Gryffindors drifted away and settled down, he began wrapping the broom up again, told his roommates he was going to take it to the Tower, grabbed his bag, and quickly hurried toward the exit.
"Potter!"
Startled out of his thoughts of escaping the Great Hall, Harry turned and saw Malfoy approaching him. Malfoy walked right up to him and grabbed the end of the broomstick's handle, which was sticking out of the torn wrapping, and scowled.
"It really is a Nimbus then," the blond growled, and while he was holding it, Harry saw him shove a piece of parchment in amongst the wrapping. He looked away from the broomstick and pushed it towards Harry with a smirk in place. "You do know first years aren't allowed to have brooms," he said loudly. People turned to look at them, seeming to expect a confrontation.
Harry was trying to think of something witty to say in return about how his father had gotten it cleared with McGonagall when Professor Flitwick walked up.
"Now, now, boys," the diminutive professor said, "let's not have one of those infamous Slytherin and Gryffindor arguments, all right? Mr. Potter's broom is an exception due to his placement on his House Team." Flitwick raised an eyebrow. "Something I believe he has you to thank for, Mr. Malfoy."
Malfoy's entire face turned a dusty pink color that reminded Harry of when he'd been hit with the color changing charm. After stifling a giggle at the thought, he said, "Yeah, Malfoy, thanks. I never would have made it onto the team without you."
The Slytherin's face grew redder, and his grey eyes narrowed. Behind himself, Harry heard Ron and Seamus's laughs. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that his roommates had followed him.
"You're welcome, Potter," Malfoy bit out, then spun on his heel and headed toward his table with more laughter following him.
"Well, you best run along now boys," Professor Flitwick said, clearly hiding a grin. "We don't want Mr. Wood over there deciding this broom needs a test flight in the middle of the Great Hall."
Harry looked back at Gryffindor table and, sure enough, Wood was staring longingly after them. He got the feeling the only reason Wood wasn't pestering him about the broom right then was because the Quidditch Captain's friends seemed to have stuck him to the bench somehow.
"Yes, Professor," Harry agreed, and quickly exited the Hall with his roomates following.
Once they were back in the Gryffindor boy's dormitory, Neville, Ron, Dean, and Seamus returned to fawning over the broom and reading aloud form the pamphlet that came with it which had been hidden in the folds of wrapping earlier. While they were distracted, Harry removed the piece of parchment Malfoy had shoved into the wrapping. In neat letters it read:
We need to discuss the events of a week ago. Meet me at the owlery on Saturday after breakfast.
Harry immediately thought of the mysterious magical pressure that didn't seem to want him to talk about what he'd seen that night a week ago, and wondered if he and Malfoy could talk about it. What about it would Malfoy want to discuss? The magical pressure? Had he learned something about the cult itself? Harry had been so worried about the letter from his dad that he'd almost forgotten about the cult and hadn't tried to uncover any information on them himself. He hoped Malfoy knew something.
A sudden yelp of "We're going to be late!" from Dean broke Harry from his thoughts, and seconds later the boys were all hurrying out of the Tower and down to their first class, rushing to get there in time.
••••••••
Charms was one of Harry's favorite subjects so far. Despite this, he was having a lot of trouble focusing as the clock ticked on, slowly creeping closer and closer to seven, when he was to meet Oliver Wood for his first Quidditch practice. It wasn't going to be his first official practice. He wouldn't get to have a practice with the whole team until Monday morning. Tonight's practice was more about Wood figuring out what level his skills were at than anything, he'd been told. He was still excited even though it wasn't the official practice though, because tonight he'd get to fly his Nimbus Two Thousand for the first time.
His daydreams about flying made it incredibly difficult to focus on learning the unlocking charm. Hermione, of course, had gotten it right immediately and won Gryffindor House five points. Professor Flitwick told her to try the locking charm on it, and after she got that too and earned five more points he removed the simple lock from the top of Hermione's desk and given her a slightly more complicated one to work with. As the lesson progressed, the professor continued to watch the class from his desk, floating the students different locks that were harder to unlock and relock after they'd mastered their previous one.
Most of the class was on lock three and stuck there, Hermione was on to lock four, but Harry and Neville were still on lock two when class ended. Harry thought he probably should have felt bad that he hadn't done his best work with the locks, but he was honestly too excited about flying to care that he hadn't done better. He was the first one to have this things packed away and the first one out the door.
Harry hurried up to Gryffindor Tower, barreling into the Common Room and rushing up the stairs to retrieve his broomstick. Arriving in his room, he dumped his messenger bag on his bed and changed out of his school uniform before pulling on a long-sleeved tunic and trousers that he wouldn't mind getting dirty and damaged along with a pair of boots. Then he took the day's textbooks out of his bag, slung it over his shoulder, grabbed his broom, and rushed down to the Quiddtich pitch, ignoring everyone he passed in favor of getting there quickly.
As soon as he was on the lawn, the pitch in sight and no one else around, Harry excitedly mounted the Nimbus Two Thousand and took off. He yelped with joy at the broom's speed, pushing it as fast as he could toward the pitch. The broom carried him so swiftly that he wondered if he was feeling how birds did, or dragons, when they were shooting through the sky with intent to catch their prey.
When he reached the pitch he flew over the stands and made a lap around the interior, landing only long enough to put his bag down by the opening he assumed led to the Gryffindor locker rooms. Then he was back in the air again. He tried out a few of the moves Sirius had shown him, but mostly he just flew straight and enjoyed the wind blasting past him and the feeling of freedom that came with flight.
After a while a movement down on the ground caught his eye, and he flew to it, grinning widely as he saw Wood, who was still dressed in his school uniform, floating a heavy-looking chest onto the pitch and carrying a broom. He landed a short distance away from the Quidditch Captain and ran up to him. Breathless with excitement he asked, "Ready to practice?"
"Here, eat this first," Wood said, pushing a cloth napkin with something wrapped in it into his hands. "You skipped the start of dinner, and we won't be done 'til after eight. Meanwhile, let me have a look at that Nimbus."
Harry gave a short laugh and handed the broom over. While Wood reverently ran his hands over the broomstick and examined it with an awestruck expression, Harry unwrapped the napkin and uncovered a still-warm Cornish pasty. He took a bite of the D-shaped pastry. It had beef and other delicious things inside. He happily devoured the savory meat-pie-like pastry and watched as Wood took the broom for a 'practice lap' to 'make sure it was safe'. As amused as Harry was by his captain's antics, he rather wished the older boy wasn't so fixated on his broom. He'd like to have it back so that they could start the practice.
Wood returned the broom a few minutes later and opened the chest. "Now," Wood said as Harry joined him by it, "You've read the book?"
"Yes," Harry said, "three times, almost four."
"Good." Wood grinned. "And if I remember correctly you've been following Quidditch and flying for some years now, have played Seeker's games with a practice Snitch, and have played some of the other positions with your father and godfather."
Harry nodded.
"Good, good. Then I don't have to go through the entire explanation, but I'm still going to give you a quick rundown of our team." Wood gestured toward the balls in the chest. "These are our practice balls. Handling the Quaffle will be our Chasers, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, and Alicia Spinnet. Yours truly is Keeper. Our Beaters, Fred and George Weasley, will handle the two Bludgers that keep trying to escape their chains. Then..." Wood opened a small compartment that looked like the Hogwarts crest and revealed a small golden ball. "The Golden Snitch," he said, holding it up and allowing the silvery wings to expand from the ball, "is for you, our Seeker, who should catch the ball at every game to end the game and earn us one hundred and fifty points."
Harry gulped. He was very excited to get to play on the House Team, but he also realized that it was an important position to hold. The Snitch was worth a lot of points, and was usually the reason a team won a game. He'd have to be serious about playing during practices and games.
Wood put the Snitch back in its place in the chest and pulled out a bag of Snitch-sized white balls from another compartment on the chest's side. "Since this practice is more of an introduction and me figuring out where you're at right now we won't use the Snitch. Instead we'll start with basics." He held up the bag of balls. "Tonight, you're going to catch golf balls. Then, when we finish, I'll set you up with a set of training clothes and show you your locker. You ready?"
"Yeah," Harry said, and mounted his broom once more.
••••••••
Saturday morning at the end of breakfast Harry finished telling his roommates about his practice with Wood the night before and said that he was going to the owlery to send a letter to his dad thanking him for the Nimbus Two Thousand and would catch up with them later. While his roommates went back to the common room to figure out what they wanted to do with their weekend, Harry walked in the direction of the owlery. He hadn't forgotten his meeting with Malfoy, although it had been a near thing. He probably would have forgotten if the note hadn't fallen out of his pocket that morning because he was so busy thinking about what his first official Quidditch practice with the Gryffindor team would be like come Monday morning. Last night's practice seemed to be successful, and he was excited to practice with the team.
As he walked, he wondered what Malfoy would have done if Harry had forgotten about the meeting. He didn't imagine the Slytherin would wait around long after their appointed meeting time, but he also didn't think the blond would be very forgiving if Harry didn't show up. Malfoy would probably find the first opportunity to confront him, quite angrily, about it.
The owlery, Harry thought, was in a rather more distant location than where he would have put it. It felt detached from the rest of the castle, and he wondered if the owls didn't feel lonely because of it. He climbed the narrow steps to the tower door and went inside.
Malfoy was already there, petting an eagle owl and giving it a letter to carry. As if sensing his presence, Hedwig flew down and perched next to the eagle owl, startling Malfoy and causing him to turn toward the door.
"Potter," Malfoy greeted.
"Malfoy," Harry returned. He walked over to his owl, careful of where he stepped on the rather messy floor. "What did you want to talk about?"
Making an elegant hand gesture, Malfoy sent his owl away, and it flew off with his letter. "About the events of last week... Do you find yourself having trouble telling anyone about what we saw?"
Harry reached Hedwig and started petting her. "Yeah, when I tried to tell Hermione about the cult a magical pressure pushed down on me. I got the feeling it would... punish me if I told her anything, so I just said we ended up somewhere I'd never been and that we got lost. The magic eased up then. And it seemed almost happy. When I tried to write about it in a letter to my dad it wouldn't let me either. It lets me write about it if I don't intend to show anyone it though."
"Granger? Why would you want to tell her? She's a muggleborn. What would she understand about it?" Malfoy asked disapprovingly.
Rolling his eyes, Harry said, "Because she was the first person I saw the next morning and asked about what happened to us. Who did you try to tell?"
Malfoy scowled. "I tried to tell Crabbe and Goyle about it, but the magical pressure showed up and I ended up sounding just as stupid as them."
Harry frowned. "Why do you hang out with them? You don't seem to be friends, but they go almost everywhere you do." It was an odd thing Harry had noticed about the two bulky Slytherin boys. It didn't matter if they were walking to the Great Hall or going to class, the boys were almost always a few steps behind the blond.
"I don't know," Malfoy sighed. "My father knows their fathers, and I'd see them sometimes when Mother would hold a party, but otherwise I don't know them that well. I bet their parents told them to stay near me. That doesn't matter though." Malfoy's eyes glinted. "I want to know why we can't talk to other people about what we saw, but you said cult, and I said cult, and I don't feel any magical pressure at all."
"I assumed it was because we were both there, and there are only owls around to overhear us, so there's no reason for the magic not to allow us to talk to each other about it." Harry shrugged. "What I want to know is where the magic is coming from. Did the cultist who knocked us out put some kind of spell on us to keep us from telling anyone?"
"I wonder how we ended up back in our rooms. Whoever it is clearly has access to both Gryffindor and Slytherin's dorms."
He stopped petting Hedwig and turned more fully toward Malfoy. "Maybe the cult has people from both Slytherin and Gryffindor."
"Why would Gryffindors and Slytherins work together? Our houses hate each other!" Malfoy scoffed.
"Well we're working together, aren't we?"
"That's different. We have extenuating circumstances," Malfoy pronounced carefully. "And I don't have to work with you, I only asked you here so that I could find out if the magic was affecting you too."
Harry frowned. "What does that mean?"
"Well it would make a difference if only one of us was affected."
"So what are we going to do?" Harry sighed. "We don't know how to get back to that strange Hall, and it could be bad if we run into the cult again, but I don't know how else we'll figure out what's happening."
"We aren't going to do anything," Malfoy said. "Our houses hate each other, remember? We'll both have to look separately or they'll get suspicious."
"Oh." Harry remembered Ron's and a few other Gryffindors' comments about Slytherins and nodded. "You're right."
"Well, Potter, I'll be leaving now. See you around." The blond headed for the door.
"Yeah. See ya. I guess." Harry said, and watched as Malfoy opened the door. "Oh, Malfoy!"
The blond paused and looked back at him. "What?"
Harry looked down. "Uh, it really is because of you that I'm on the Quidditch team and got the Nimbus, so... Thanks, really."
"Yeah, well, you're welcome, I suppose," Malfoy muttered. "Goodbye, Potter." He left, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Harry turned back to Hedwig looked into the bird's bright yellow eyes. "You didn't hear any of that about a cult and stuff, all right?"
Hedwig ruffled her feathers and shifted on her perch.
Harry smiled. "Thanks. Here, can you deliver this to my dad?" She took the letter he held out to her, flapped her wings, and flew out one of the open windows. His eyes followed her as she soared for a little bit, then she banked on the breeze and went out of sight.
Careful of the mess on the floor, Harry picked his way back to the door and left the owlery. He hurried back to Gryffindor Tower thinking of the mysterious cult and decided he needed to come up with a plan for finding out more about it. In the meantime, he wanted to catch up with his roommates and have some fun.
••••••••
Harry wondered how he ever could have thought that Quidditch practice would be easy. His one-on-one practice with Wood was nothing compared to real practice with the team.
Thunder rumbled distantly in the cloud-covered sky, and a steady downpour fell, thoroughly dowsing and chilling them. Harry almost felt like he was underwater. The rain had soaked through his training clothes. The yellow and red t-shirt clung to his skin despite being under the red, lightweight outer-robe that was charmed to repel water. His gray cotton joggers hadn't stood a chance; they were heavy with the water they absorbed, and threatened to slide right off his hips if he didn't tie the strings in the waistband tighter. The leather of his arm bracers, gloves, and greaves was also charmed to repel water, but the rain slipped in between his skin and the leather anyway. Even his shoes and socks were sopping, and his feet slid dangerously on the wet grass every time he landed and ran sprints with the others at Wood's command.
By the time Wood finally called them into the Gryffindor Quidditch Quarters Harry's breath came in gasps, his legs felt like they were going to give out on him, and the Snitch hadn't even been released. The Quaffle and Bludgers hadn't been brought out either, for that matter. Wood had decided to fully focus practice on working them physically to 'get you back in shape and increase your stamina' before they would work on technique.
Inside, the Quarters were delightfully warm despite the cloth wall coverings, but the warmth made Harry all the more aware of how waterlogged he was. He desperately wanted to go to the boys' locker room and strip off his gear, but Wood directed the group to sit down in the room outside the girls' and boys' locker rooms where there was a large chalkboard, a small table, and several benches. Wood called the space the Strategy Room, and the moment everyone had squelched onto a bench he took off with a speech.
"All right, lads!" Wood clapped his hands together and everyone raised their heads to look at him.
"And ladies!" Spinnet broke in, her brown eyes determined.
"Right. Lads and ladies," Wood corrected. "That was a decent first practice. Not the best, but decent. It seems most of you haven't slacked off this summer quite as much as you did the last time. And as for our new Seeker..." He smiled at Harry. "You did a bang-up job of keeping up! I think we'll be able to push forward following the schedule that I made this summer."
There was a groan from one of the girls behind him, and Harry turned to see Johnson shaking her head, her black hair dripping water as she did. "Another schedule? Is this one full of crazy stuff from that summer camp too?"
Wood's brows furrowed, and he looked sternly at her. "Yes, and it's not crazy. IYQC is at the forefront of training techniques and churns out brilliant players that go on to play for some of the best teams in the world."
"It churns them out all right," George started, pulling off his shoes and socks.
"Into a sopping glop of Quidditch potential," Fred ended. He wrung one of his socks out, and water fell to the floor.
"Gross," Bell muttered from where she was squeezing water out of her tangled brown hair.
"Exactly!" Wood shouted. "You come out of IYQC absolutely saturated with potential from all you've learned there! Well, unless you're not cut out for it, of course."
The girls sighed.
Harry was curious. "What's the-" There were suddenly two hands covering his mouth and Fred and George were sitting next to him.
"Don't ask," they said.
Wood's eyes were alight. Clearly he'd heard the first part of Harry's question and was more than ready to answer. He opened his mouth, but was quickly cut off by a collective groan from the rest of the team. Wood frowned at them. "Fine, I won't tell you. I'll just tell Harry." He looked down at his wristwatch. "Later. Or we'll miss breakfast. Go on lads," he paused when Bell gave him a glare this time, "and ladies, go get changed, shower, whatever, and head back to the castle. I'll get you the more detailed schedules by the end of the week, and don't forget we have practice Wednesday morning!"
The girls quickly headed to their locker room, and Harry picked up his broom and followed Fred and George to the boys' room with Wood trailing along behind. The boys' locker room was divided into two sections. The first one they walked into was the locker portion. It had a long wooden bench standing in the middle of it. Opposite the door, a large storage locker for extra gear and a hamper for them to throw soiled clothing in for the house elves to clean stood. To the left was a wooden dividing wall with an opening that led to the showers, sinks, and the room's single toilet. To the right was a row of tall, red-painted lockers. There were enough lockers for two Quidditch teams, the regular and the reserve, and each locker was marked by the player's position, but only four were currently being used.
Harry went to the regular team locker labeled 'Seeker' and pressed his hand against the metal. His hand tingled as the magic recognized him from when Wood had registered him as Seeker during their practice Friday, then the door unlatched with a click. Harry opened it up and withdrew his messenger bag and school uniform, setting them on the bench, and put his Nimbus inside. He tried to look anywhere but at his teammates as they shucked off their wet training clothes and tossed them in the hamper, completely unembarrassed to be almost naked in front of each other. George must have noticed his hesitation to undress in front of the older boys, because Harry suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his head to see the taller boy giving him a gentle smile as Fred and Wood walked to the showers.
"Don't worry about it, Harry," George said, "we won't judge you." Then he walked to the showers with the others.
Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was being silly. It wasn't like they were naked. They had their pants on. He did wonder how they went from towel-wrapped to new pants without anyone seeing them after the shower though. In the dormitory the bed hangings sort of blocked each person's view into the other's changing area, but there weren't any curtain-like dividers here. Perhaps they brought their new pants to the shower with them and put them somewhere they wouldn't get wet? He really should have paid more attention to what the older boys were doing and had brought with them to the showers. He took another deep breath. It was going to be awkward, but he really would like to take a shower before heading back up to the castle. The rain had been really cold, and the shower would be warm. Harry exhaled slowly then stripped down to his pants.
He deposited his wet training clothes in the hamper, took his pair of dry pants and the new bar of soap that was in his locker with him, and went to the showers. The light gray-tiled half of the locker room contained one toilet stall in the corner with a row of sinks opposite it. The rest of the tiled area was taken up by shower stalls made of wood. Standing in the open space in the center was a metal rack holding rolled-up white towels with a stripe of red and gold near the edge.
The sound of falling water and the twins' poor singing of a Celestina Warbeck song echoed loudly in the space. Quickly, Harry retrieved one of the towels and hurried over to one of the empty stalls. He was glad to find a couple of hooks on the inside that he could hang his towel and pants on without them getting wet.
Harry finished undressing then turned on the water to a heated setting and washed. After his short but warming shower, Harry toweled off and put his dry pants on. He hung the towel over his shoulders so he could use it on his hair a bit more and left the shower, taking the soap with him and tossing his wet pants in the hamper as he made his way back to his locker. Wood and the twins were already at their lockers and partially dressed in their school uniforms. Harry quickly joined them in dressing and was pleased when nothing awkward happened. It seemed his fears were silly after all.
Wood was finished dressing first, and left with a cheery, "See you at breakfast, lads!"
Once he was gone, Fred and George spoke. "How can he be so cheery?"
"It's the morning! Early morning!"
"And after a practice in the rain!"
They gave a sigh simultaneously.
Harry laughed and slung his bag over his shoulder. "I don't know, but he's got the right idea. It's time for breakfast!"
The twins chuckled and left with him, pulling their hoods up and running to the castle through rain that had slowed to a drizzle.
A/N: Perhaps not the reaction from James you were expecting? Thought Harry and Draco were going to investigate more together? Don't worry, I play the long game. I love the idea of Quidditch, so you can expect it to make periodic appearances. Although I don't think there'll be more awkward (for Harry anyway) locker room scenes. I just thought it would help set up more of the team dynamic. They're quite considerate of their youngest teammate. As usual, reviews are much appreciated! Constructive criticism, questions (answered via PM), and other comments are welcome!
Thanks for reading! :) ~ HowlingRain