A/n: Note of (imo) importance here: in response to SarcasticInkiling's suggestion of a shared Pikachu and Ash dream, I've written and published a oneshot. It's in a new story, HPatPFAU Oneshots. I'll do Guest (from chapter 34/5)'s boggart one later.
"I don't care if Sirius tampered with the broom, so long as Harry can catch the snitch!"
As soon as Wood had found about Harry's firebolt and its short lived time in his possession, the Gryffindor Quidditch captain had tasked himself with getting the broom back from McGonagall personally. Nearly a week later, he hadn't made any progress, but he had made a lot of people angry.
"Would you be quiet?" Hermione snapped irritably. The girl had been spending all her time doing one homework or another, and when she wasn't she was helping Cilan with Buckbeak's case. She was becoming seriously overworked, to the point where Ash and Iris were considering tying her down until she got some proper rest.
Hermione's comment went ignored as McGonagall, who had previously simply been ignoring Wood's constant pestering, whipped round to glare at the student.
"If the broom was cursed, you'd find Mr Potter too dead to help you catch the snitch, in which case the team would never have his, as you put it, 'essential help', again. Not to mention that this is a student's life we're discussing here, which is far too serious to -"
Wood, who had previously looked quite determined, almost angry, was quickly reduced to being ashamed, and fearful of McGonagall's wrath. When he had the chance to in the Transfiguration teacher's lecture, he was quick to apologise for his out-of-place demands, and assure McGonagall that he wouldn't do it again - though Ash wasn't too sure about that, as he could've sworn he heard Wood mutter "not 'till tomorrow, anyway" as he scuttled off.
She sighed loudly and returned to her work, writing about one of the potions they had to write an essay about for Snape. Iris peered over Hermione's shoulder as she scribbled furiously, her usually neat handwriting having long since deteriorated into an untidy scrawl.
"You should give up for now," Iris advised. "You could come down to the lake with us!"
Hermione blanked her, starting a new paragraph about the effects of the potion changing with the time of year it was brewed in.
"We're having a battle..." Iris said enticingly, frowning when her second effort failed. Not easily deterred, she decided to try the 'third time lucky' rule, "It's Dragonite against Charizard..."
This gained no response either, so Iris - after giving a deliberate huff in Hermione's direction - stalked over to Ash, who was stood - more like bouncing - next to the portrait. "You ready?"
Ash grinned, pushing his fist into the air. "Of course!" he said, loud enough to grab the attention of a few of the older Gryffindors, "Come on, I told Harry and Ron we'd be down there soon!"
Harry, who had been keen to take Iris's suggestion of a break on board, couldn't help but feel a little excited as he watched the two dragons - Charizard, he knew, wasn't a dragon type, but it was dragon shaped - square off against each other. Both Iris and Ash wore matching determined expressions, and confident smirks, from their opposing sides of the battlefield.
"This will be a battle between Dragonite and Charizard!" Cilan announced. "No other pokemon are to be used, the first to be unable to battle loses." He brought an arm down, signalling the start of the battle.
"Charizard, flamethrower!" Ash snapped as soon as Cilan's arm dropped, and the fire-flying type took off immediately, sending a stream of flame down at the dragon before Iris had time to give out an order.
Iris gritted her teeth together. "Counter it with your own flamethrower!" she called, swiping her arm across, hand open and palm down. Dragonite obeyed the order, pushing off himself, fast enough to create a ripple of air that brushed the grass back in a ring around his take-off spot, and opened his mouth to let out an orange stream which clashed with the other, slightly larger one in mid-air, just before Charizard's attack connected. An explosion of smoke spread out, which both pokemon spread out with their powerful wing-beats.
Once he could actually see the field properly, Ash saw that Charizard had taken the initiative to start wrestling in the air. "Use dragon breath!"
Charizard's purple-flaming mouth connected with Dragonite's shoulder - at such close range, the move became more of a dragon-fang. Iris sent an order to shake off the fire type, and, failing that, settled on thunder punch. Charizard had to relinquish his grip on Dragonite as the electricity hit him, and fell a few feet before regaining control of his flight path and climbing up to meet the dragon type face on.
"Charizard!" Ash shouted, cupping his hands to be heard from such a distance, "Use seismic toss!"
"Don't let him!" Iris yelled, too late as Charizard got a grip on the fleeing Dragonite. It started to flail, but Charizard had a superior grip and brought the dragon plummeting with him, directly towards the lake. At the last moment, Charizard stretched out his wings to stop himself, and with a thwack of his tail for good measure, slam dunked Dragonite into the lake.
Both Iris and Ash rushed over to the lake edge, where Charizard hovered warily, breathing deeply. Bubbles rose up from where Dragonite had gone under, waves moving out in a circle, disturbed by the original plume of water sent up. When Dragonite resurfaced, lying face up, he was clearly unconscious.
"Dragonite is unable to battle, Charizard wins!" Cilan called, raising an arm to Ash's side of the field.
"Yeah!" Ash shouted, rushing over to give the fire type a hug. "Great job, Charizard!"
Meanwhile, Iris returned Dragonite to her pokeball. "Good effort," she praised, smiling down at the red and white ball.
The dementor battling lessons continued, though not much progress was made after the first lesson. Both boys could keep them at bay effectively, but the fully formed patronus was yet to emerge from either wizard's wand tip.
"Why are the dementors here this year?" Ash asked at the end of another unsuccessful lesson. He knew that they were supposed to deter Sirius, but the knowledge that a simple - to a skilled wizard - charm was all that it took to escape them made their presence seem nullified.
"Mostly to guard." Lupin said, understanding what Ash meant even if he hadn't conveyed it properly verbally, "They are the guards of Azkaban after all. But they're also here to administer the kiss, if we do find Black."
"Kiss?" Harry echoed. The way it had been said made it sound like some terrible thing, but as far as he knew a kiss was just touching someone with your lips.
"When a dementor kisses someone, it sucks out their soul." Lupin explained. Ash shuddered at the idea of having his soul removed - aura was like your soul, in that it was the life force of all things, and he knew from experience that over-expending that, removing it completely from yourself, was painful.
"And Dumbledore let them onto the school ground?" Ash asked, mouth hanging open.
"It's only used as a punishment for major crimes though," Lupin assured, "without permission the dementors can't administer it. And what Sirius - what Black did, warrants it."
Ash supposed that it made sense, he had murdered people after all, and shown that prison couldn't hold him, but couldn't find it in him to agree with Lupin. After all, the worst punishment in his universe was a prison sentence, and someone breaking out would be taken as indication you needed better security, not that the prisoner needed to be stopped more permanently. 'I guess this universe is just more violent...'
On the way back to the common room, a few weeks after having taken his broom, McGonagall stopped Harry on the corridor. "I couldn't find anything," she said, presenting him with the Firebolt.
"Thanks, professor!" Harry grinned as he turned around and continued on his way back to the common room.
The group reached the portrait hole, surprised to see Neville stood outside, panicking.
"What's wrong?" Cilan asked, looking at the boy. Neville sagged in relief as he noticed that some other people were there. "Is there something wrong with the portrait again?"
"No," Neville shook his head miserably, "I forgot the password. Again." He looked up at the five, a bit embarrassed to be admitting it. "I wrote down the password too, since I always forget it, but..."
"You lost that too?" Iris guessed, gaining a nod from Neville, who now refused to look at them.
"Well luckily, a connoisseur always remembers things!" Cilan announced cheerfully as he said the password and opened the door. This only seemed to worsen Neville's mood, as he realised that even people in other houses could remember the password when he couldn't.
The six of them entered the common room, and Harry accidentally revealed the broom as he did, not thinking to cover it up as he walked in. Instantly the whole house was crowded around trying to get a glimpse of it, and somehow the gathering crowd managed to spontaneously start up a party.
Harry handed the broom over to one of the members of the crowd and escaped it as quickly as he could. Once he was freed from the mass of students, he made his way over to the corner of the room.
As usual, Hermione was sat in a corner and studying vigorously, too preoccupied to even notice Harry approaching. The lack of acknowledgement nearly made Harry go back over to the party on the other side of the room, but he stood his ground. He needed to apologise, and put the whole thing behind them before it got out of hand. He had planned on getting Ron at the same time, but he had mysteriously vanished upstairs as the crowd formed.
"Hermione," Harry started, the sound of his voice snapping her out of her hurried writing. She turned to look at him, surprised that he was there and looking a bit mad with her tired, yet energised, expression. Harry was about to continue when Ron came down the stairs, shouting about something.
"-your bloody cat! He killed him! killed Scabbers!" Ron's words became audible and it was immediately clear who his anger was directed at. Harry looked at Ron exasperatedly as he realised that making amends with Hermione would have to wait.
Things got worse before they got better. Despite the lack of real evidence that Scabbers was dead rather than too scared to return to the tower, Ron blamed the event on Hermione. He wasn't taking the death of his pet very well either, constantly mentioning it to Hermione.
Harry had attempted to mediate, at first, but it soon became clear that it was a pointless endeavour. Hermione accused him of siding with Ron, and he couldn't spend time with either of them on their own without the other complaining. He couldn't spend time with the both of them either, though; they'd argue.
Despite this, there were times when he had little choice in the matter - like now, when they were all sitting around in the common room. Harry sighed, glancing back at the two. Ron was shouting at Hermione - loud enough that Harry could hear from the other side of the room - Hermione was glaring at the redhead, and, for some reason, Fred and George were approaching.
"Does ikkle Ronikinns miss his Scabbers-wabbers?" Fred joked, George laughing too hard to add anything else to the tease. Ron only glared at the two, making their laughter even harder to stop.
"Where's Harry and Ash?" George asked once Ron turned back to resume his argument. "Run them both off with your lover's spat?"
"It's not -" Ron began, but the twins weren't listening. Hermione had pointed the two in the right direction, and they'd already moved over to their intended targets.
"Wood says -"
"- Quidditch practise -"
"- in about ten minutes."
Harry blinked - he had no idea which twin had said what - then nodded once he understood the message. He sent an apologetic look over to Iris. "You might want to go find Cilan," he said. "Me and Ash could be gone for a while, you know how Wood is."
The practise session was a good idea on Wood's part, as the team performed better than ever when spurred on by the new broom. It was interesting to see how a little enthusiasm could go a long way, and Ash could feel the positivity as they all left the session.
The positivity exuding from Harry disappeared on the way back suddenly, prompting Ash to turn to him to see what was wrong. Whatever it was, it wasn't serious, as Harry was just staring at a dog that he'd noticed. For some reason the dog was spooking Harry, though Ash couldn't see why; he wasn't scared of any magical creatures, what was so terrifying about a common dog?
So, if you're interested, go check out the oneshot. Otherwise, please review and see you (hopefully) next weekend with a new chapter.