A/N: I would like to give, once more, my appreciation to my reviewers. This'll most likely be the only chapter today. AU-ness note: The mention of the first Gryffindor game in the books is after Halloween. From my recollection, the book does not mention when any of the games take place, aside from Gryffindor. A butterfly flapping its wings (or Dumbles getting grounded and various other factors in this case) moved the game. This represents my first major time skip. (8/22/10)

Chapter 14: Time Passes

The next day, Harry and Neville did indeed have a chat with Alistair. The end result of that conversation was that if after the Winter Holidays if it was found that Neville had had any blocks placed on him, the Hat would immediately have him made a Ward of Hogwarts. They also planned a bit of payback directed at Malfoy and Ronald, who worked against each other as much as they, individually, worked against Gryffindor.

So instead of doing anything thing that would point to action taken from outside the House of Snakes, they used a number of carefully placed jinxes and hexes, most of which Harry had learned from the Twins, to turn the pair of Slytherins, along with the rest of the house's first years, against themselves. All it really took was a trio of trip jinxes, a pair of boil hexes, and a particularly nasty slug-belching hex.

The house then devolved into a state of prank warfare. It lasted for weeks, costing the Snakes whatever points that Professor Snape managed to sneak past his oaths. It was the middle of October, about a week before the first Quidditch match of the year, Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, before it ended. The new Head of Slytherin, Aurora Sinistra, finally stepped in, and handed out a week of detention to each and every first year Snake.

The twins, in awe of Neville's work with Harry, started worked alongside him whenever they pulled Harry into a prank.

A great many people in the castle wondered why a white phoenix had taken to following Harry around, often riding on his shoulder. When Harry and Neville both acted like nothing was out of the ordinary, and pointedly ignored questions, everyone at least shut up about it. To their faces. They both had made it a point in the first month to remain willfully ignorant of the Hogwarts rumor mill. Their sanity had required it.

Though when Hermione asked, she got a 'we'll tell you, sooner rather than later, if you respect Harry's privacy'. Which caused her to not talk to either of them for a week, because she correctly deduced that Neville knew. She apologized to them however, and then Harry went into a short speech on his belief about forgiveness.

"Well I am not going to forgive you. Forgiveness is permission to repeat behavior. I am however willing to forget it."

Snape however tried to give Harry a detention and dock points. He took it to McGonagall, and with the two present, recited articles, sections, and paragraphs from the Hogwarts Charter that explained exactly why he was allowed to have his bonded familiar accompany him anywhere he went in the castle.

While they had the Slytherin prank war for their viewing entertainment, Harry and Neville, alongside Hermione, became some of the best students of their year. Harry took the top spot with ease, outpacing Hermione with an ease that visibly annoyed the witch. Sure she took the second spot, but it became apparent that she was a sore loser. Harry ignored it, and didn't change how he acted to his favorite study buddy. He figured she would get used to being second best.

Neville, with the two of them to help him, wasn't a definitive third, but he was indeed somewhere in the top thirteen. His spellwork improved dramatically after having gotten a new wand, and sitting directly next to one, and near the other in each and every single class, meant that whatever minor issues he had were quickly tied up and thrown onto the proverbial trash heap.

Harry had gone to each of his teachers, asking if they had any books they would recommend him reading for additional study. It took some threatening from Alistair to get the books from Snape. The Hat added a few suggestions of its own.

On the subject of wands, while Harry and Neville were first brainstorming about how to get back at the Slytherin Duo, he asked Nev about his wand. He pulled it from a forearm holster. It was a gently tapered ten inch wand, with a lazy spiral of white and black. Harry recognized it. "Another of Ollivander's masterpieces?"

Neville nodded, "You said yours was one, but you never said what it was made of."

Harry pulled his wand, thirteen inches and almost viciously pointed, with thirteen stripes each of jet black and bright red. He then relayed what Ollivander told him about it. Neville then replied with how his own was black fir and white ash, with a gryphon crest feather.

On the Occlumency front, Harry finished up the both the strengthening of his inner mind, and the detail work of his misdirection. Alistair then began teaching him various means how to disorient and confuse invaders, a light gray use of the Art. Harry found Penrose Staircases, labyrinths, and deep banks of fog and mist to be the most effective. He did however create a space he could access from his inner mind, in which he worked on other methods, even if the actual defenses only used the three he currently found effective. He figured it would take some work to make use of more esoteric and logic defying aspects of this particular use.

When the 'festivities' of the Slytherin prank war were gone, Harry started to get anxious about his first Quidditch match. He had taken up pacing whenever he wasn't working, and had even started reading while doing it. No amount of consolation from the more veteran members of the team could stop him. The other rookie player, Chaser and second year Katie Bell, joined in the restless behavior two days before the match.

The morning of the match, the Saturday before Halloween. Harry forced himself to eat, barely able to get any food in him. As Wood called the team to head to the locker room, Neville gave Harry a reassuring grin, and Hermione gave him a comforting look from over a copy of 'Quidditch Through the Ages'.

Oliver gave a speech with a manic gleam in his eyes. The twins of course made fun of him. Harry shouldered the borrowed school broom and team then made its way to the pitch. He fought down his rising anxiety. The captains shook hands, and the game commenced.

Apart from the occasional bludger sent his way, Wood had decided that Harry should keep his play simple for his first game. He simply circled the pitch, staying well above play. Forty-five minutes into play, while he was moving across mid-field and his counter-part was near the Gryffindor goal hoops, he spotted the gleam of the snitch near the ground by the Slytherin goal hoops. Harry continued his leisurely move toward that end of the pitch, and then when he was halfway there, he set off at the broom's top speed, and caught the snitch with no issues. The ending score was 210 – 20.

The following week passed with little of event to note, however Harry became increasingly disconsolate as the week progressed. Neville and Hermione were the only ones who really noticed, being the two he spent the most time with. When Halloween finally came around, he said nothing all day. After lunch Hermione, against Neville's protestations, dragged Harry into an empty classroom and asked, "What is wrong with you?"

The only reply he gave her was a dirty look.

She missed the point, and said, "I'm waiting."

In a tone one might use to explain a simple fact to a small child (and in a very condescending manner), he said, "It's Halloween."

Her perplexed look only served to show that she, like most of the castle population who were celebrating and encouraging Harry to celebrate, meant she just did not get it. Neville, and amazingly the Twins, had been the only ones to catch the meaning his behavior.

And Neville knew exactly what Harry was feeling. He had talked with Harry previously about what had happened to his own parents. About how they had been tortured into insanity, exactly a week after

Harry made a noise that showed his disgust and displeasure, looked at Neville and rolled his eyes, before he turned on the spot and stormed out of the room. Hermione was still clueless and stood rooted on the spot for a moment, before moving to go after him, but was stopped by Neville.

"Neville, we need to know why he is acting like this!"

Neville, in a rather venomous tone, asked, "Hermione. Halloween. The attack on Godric's Hollow. How can you be so thick?"

A look of horror crossed her face, and she clapped a hand to her mouth.

"I would suggest you just give him space for the rest of the day."

And she took Neville's advice. She didn't get Harry to try and talk about it. She didn't try and force him to act like normal. She just let him be. And he was grateful for it. After his last class, he headed up to the common room. He didn't plan on going down to the Feast tonight. He'd figured he could miss one meal, so long as he still took his potion. He was almost finished them anyway.

That plan was altered when the Twins came in from their class, and with one look each at each other and Neville, they frog-marched Harry out of the common room, and into the kitchens. It hadn't really crossed his mind to get food from here, but in the first, and only, words he would speak kindly that day, "Thank you."

A week later, Neville was as quiet as Harry had been on Halloween. Instead of taking any meals in the Great Hall, Harry led him to the kitchens for each meal. Hermione accompanied them, but didn't ask any questions. This was probably due to the fact that Harry would give her a very dirty look whenever she opened her mouth with a questioning look on her face. The day passed in more or less silence for the group, partly because Neville had made sure he had nothing that desperately needed doing that night, and went to bed early.

Once he was out of sight, Hermione started bombarding him with questions, to which he simply replied, "Mind your own bloody business."

The venom in his tone reminded her of how Neville had spoken to her on Halloween. Her mouth formed a small o, a look of horror crossed her face, and she softly said, "Sorry."

"Just don't do it again, Hermione."

He pulled out some of his supplement Transfiguration reading, and settled in for the night.

The next month and three-quarters passed, with little remarkable about it. Sure the twins played pranks, mostly on the one of the following groups; the entirety of Slytherin House, the more stuck-up members of Ravenclaw, or those who cost Gryffindor a large number of points. The few pranks in which Alistair added his own input were particularly memorable. That time at dinner when the whole school broke into a rather insane rendition of Danny Boy left everyone confused. And it gave Harry an idea.

Neville and Harry continued pranking Malfoy and Ronald, who had taken to taunting Harry (and each other) in the hallways. They had also taken to generally deriding the muggleborns students. The pranks stuck to various changes in the color of the offending parties' robes, switching the hair of the pair (to which Malfoy was far more horrified about, Harry and Neville filed this fact away for future use), and with a little help from Padfoot, used some rather potent muggle laxatives against them.

Fred and George were rather pleased with the pair of first years. They started to teach the pair some more... embarrassing spells to use against offending parties. Harry's favorite was a hex which caused the person to uncontrollably pass gas for upwards of an hour, but Neville was rather fond of one that caused the hexed student to waltz.

The two Quidditch games during this period of time, Ravenclaw vs. Hufflepuff and Slytherin vs. Hufflepuff, resulted in two defeats for the house of the loyal, though they put up a good fight of it. Harry had taken a liking to his 'Puff yearmates, even though he only shared one class a week with them, and so could be seen cheering them in both matches.

Classes proceed in the same manner as before, the Gryffindor Trio taking the top places in their house and year, and Hermione and Harry still taking second and first in the year. Harry continued his extra reading, but didn't seek any new lessons from Alistair regarding mental defenses. He spent most of the time working on how to make the new portions of his defenses as surreal and disorienting as possible.

Harry been exchanging letters with Nicolas, Perenelle, and Sirius since he had gotten caught up from being in St. Mungo's. Sirius more than the others, simply due to his proclivities for pranking. Most letters were sent via school owl, however when he told the Flamels about Hedwig being a phoenix, and also apparently only one of his familiars, he had given the letter to her to deliver. They said he would be pointed toward all the books they had about familiars and phoenixes, and would also try to answer any questions he might have.

Finally, the Winter Holidays started, and Harry, Neville, and Hermione ended up sharing a compartment with the twins, and for most of the ride the boys played a few rounds of exploding snap while Hermione stuck her nose in a book. The ride passed uneventfully, except for some taunting from the Ferret who was accompanied by Crabbe and Goyle as always. It resulted in Malfoy having an uncontrollable case of gas and the walls of meat doing a rather respectable waltz down the train.

On the platform, Padfoot was standing near the Flamels, both the Weasley parents and the little sister were waiting for the Hogwarts contingent of the clan, and Neville's Gran were easily recognized, and the pair of people Hermione went to were apparently her parents. Watching for a few minutes with a slight grin on his face, seeing his friends go to their families, he laughed and made his way to his.