Over the next few days Eddie overheard some conversations in which Hannah was still trying to figure out this mysterious letter-writer. It had sounded, to Eddie's happiness, that Hannah had taken the note as a compliment, which was good. He'd also heard his name come up a few times. Eddie was on the fence about telling her that he had wrote it, but feared that she might not believe him. So he stayed quiet, and the days continued to tick down to his birthday, which was on the 24th, also Newt Scamander's birthday. Eddie had been overjoyed to hear that he shared his birthday with his favorite character, back in his old days of browsing Pottermore relentlessly for information.

Did he miss his old family? Absolutely. Knowing the Bringer of Balance had frozen time in the "real world" brought great solace to him. But now he had found a new family, the Fateful Eight. With his burgeoning crush on Hannah, he debated if he'd ever go back to the "real world." Biologically, he was nearly fifteen, but here, he was merely twelve. The oldest of the group had been Tom, who was fifteen when he got sucked into the Wizarding World, and the youngest Lily, she was eleven, and didn't change her age at all. In between they had Claire (twelve), Sean (twelve), Eddie (thirteen), Nathan (thirteen) Natalie (fourteen), and Victoria (fourteen). So, a decent range of ages. Birthdays spanned the entire year, with Tom being born on New Year's Day and Sean on New Year's Eve. They often joked with him that the only reason he was in Slytherin was that he was born on Voldemort's 80th birthday.

Sean had, of course, faced prejudice from most of the school, as well as the rest of all those who wore silver and green on their chests. This had subsided somewhat after Claire's attack, but occasionally, some Gryffindors would make fun of Sean. At these instances, Sean still reeling from Claire being attacked right in front of them, would lunge at them and have to be restrained by whoever was with him. This rarely happened in Potions, as there was one rather fun instance where Seamus Finnigan got detention. He muttered "at least it was a Slytherin that got attacked." Before Sean could do anything stupid, Snape wordlessly immobilzed him, then strode two paces at a time up to Seamus and Dean Thomas's table, looking extremely dangerous. He put his face very close to Seamus's, then muttered very silkily and coldly, "Detention, Finnigan, and forty points from Gryffindor. If you ever make another joke about the well-being of a student, I can promise you, you will be expelled. Have I made myself clear?" Now sheet-white, Seamus nodded. Evidently satisfied, Snape continued the lesson, and Seamus didn't say anything for the rest of the lesson, even after class was over. Sean didn't talk much after that, either, and began to frequently spend time in the hospital wing with Claire. The others suspected he had a bit of a crush as well, which would have made him the third boy in the group- only Tom seemed nowhere to cracking. But that was Tom Hewett- professional, stately, buisnesslike. He seemed unlikely to ever develop a crush on Natalie or otherwise.

At this point, Eddie had told the rest of the group about his letter to Hannah. As expected, the girls were overly critical, saying he could have written this and that, while the boys- at least Nathan and Sean were congratulating him. They were middle schoolers, after all.

The day arrived- Eddie's birthday. There was also a Quidditch match that afternoon, Ravenclaw vs. Slytherin. Eddie went down to breakfast, and then they had their traditional Fateful Eight birthday party, which they did for any member, in the Room of Requirement, so they fooled around for a few hours until the game, which was scheduled to start at three o'clock. Sean

was to be playing against Nathan, and last year Slytherin had won this contest, knocking Ravenclaw out of the running for the Quidditch Cup. However, with Ravenclaw's win over Hufflepuff in the first match, and Slytherin's win over Gryffindor thanks to Lucius Malfoy's great wealth and "generosity", the two houses were both tied at 1 win and 0 losses. Interestingly, Malfoy made the team as a Chaser, one of the first major alterations of continuity they had seen outside of their influence and main goal. Whoever won the Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor game the following week would knock the other out, assuming of course, no one got attacked and the season would continue.

The game started and Slytherin was the subject of much animosity in the stands, particularly among the Gryffindors. This was an interesting perspective in Eddie's view. In the books, it was the other way around (seeing how the books were written with a Gryffindor as the main character, it was natural to make the rival house "bullies". But now, given a neutral standpoint, Eddie could see the other way around.

The teasing definitely lit a fire under Sean's stomach. He was scanning feverishly for the Snitch, and anytime he saw even the faintest glint of gold, he would speed halfway across the pitch to get to it, failing every time. At one point he nearly knocked Cho off her broom , inciting jeers from the Ravenclaws. Eddie remembered a line from Prisoner of Azkaban. "Knock her (Cho) off her broom if you have to. Of course, Oliver Wood was talking to Harry in that particular scene, but Eddie thought Sean might be taking it a little bit too much to heart.

The score climbed higher and higher as Sean and Cho failed time and again to catch the elusive, pesky Snitch. Both teams passed two hundred points, then three hundred, then four hundred. According to Lily's statistics, it was the highest scoring Quidditch match in two hundred and seventy seven years. While Eddie was sitting with the five of the other Fateful Eight members not petrified or playing, watching the scoring bonanza unfold in front of them, he heard a very familiar Irish accent behind them snicker, "Shame his girlfriend isn't here to see this."

He turned, and sure enough, Seamus was sitting there with Dean.

Tom, who usually was more about schoolwork than jokes and Quidditch, (boy Hermione indeed) wittily quipped, "Oi, Seamus, how did it feel having to organize all of Snape's detention files?"

Seamus didn't say anything for a long while after that, and settled down to watch the rest of the game with a humph, However, when Sean missed yet another catch -Eddie joked to himself that this game for Sean was like the game when Ron let in fourteen goals for Gryffindor against Hufflepuff- Seamus opened his mouth again.

"Honestly, anyone else could play Seeker for this team. I'd do it myself, if it weren't for the fact I'd have to be in stinking Slytherin."

"Hey, you want to just shut up?" Eddie snapped

"Yeah, you're being quite rude," Lily added.

Seamus would regret the next two words he uttered.

"Make me."

And that was Eddie's green light. His mother had always lectured him to wait for the first punch, but his mother wasn't here, and he wasn't having it. His first punch knocked Seamus into a somersault, tumbling backward over his seat. Chaos ensued, with Tom and Dean getting involved. Fortunately for Seamus, the teachers still had their eyes glued to the match, and so the scrapple ended about five minutes later with all four boys sporting black eyes. Meanwhile, Lavender, Parvati, Hannah, Lily, and Susan were eyeing them quite nervously. Breathing heavy, Eddie decided the best course of action would be to remove himself from the situation. He dusted himself off, got up, and walked off to sit somewhere else and watch the rest of the game.

The score wound up to be four hundred and thirty to four hundred and ten when Cho caught the snitch. When Sean touched down, he chucked his broom about sixty feet then stormed off for the common room without talking to anyone. He didn't even bother changing out of his Quidditch robes or picking up his broom.

The following day, Eddie found Sean and tried his best to console him, though he was largely unsuccsessful.

He sat down at the Slytherin table. "Hey, Sean." He had his hands in his face, so that only his brown hair was showing.

"What do you want?" Sean grumbled, not looking at him.

Eddie put a hand on Sean's shoulder. "Hey. I know you're struggling all right, and I've told Ernie and them not to bug you. Well," he paused for a second and looked over at them, "it's not like they did anyways."

Sean's fist clenched. "I don't care. Nobody cares. If anyone had a brain, they'd know I would never, not even for a second, considering attacking Claire. And all this "at least it was a Slytherin" crap. I'm so sick and tired of hearing that nonsense. I knew everyone hated Slytherin, but this is a level I almost can't tolerate. It disgusts me. Just leave me alone, all right?"

Eddie nodded, and walked away. And as he fired Quaffle after Quaffle at the Quidditch hoops in the Room of Requirement later that evening, thoughts flashed through his head, pounding his skull. Claire. Hannah. The basilisk. Sean. The Quidditch match vs. Gryffindor. The fight with Seamus. All of it. As Marty McFly would say, it was heavy.

Sean found him the following day in a better mood.

"Hey, Eddie, what happened to your eye?" he asked. "I saw Tom with a right shiner too, did you guys get into a fight or what?"

Eddie wanted to ask why Sean didn't notice yesterday but remembered Sean wasn't looking at him. "Yeah."

"With who?"

"Seamus and Dean." Sean nodded.

"They were joking about me, right?"

"Yeah." Eddie nodded sadly. "No idea they'd be such jerks."

Eddie went to go get his eye fixed up from Madam Pomfrey. She questioned him on how he'd got it, as he was the fourth boy to come see her about a black eye. Eddie stayed quiet and just said he'd poked himself in the eye with a broom. He knew it'd be more trouble for Seamus if he told the whole story, as it would certainly get around to Snape. It didn't look like she believed him, but she fixed up his eye all the same.

On the first day of March - due to the Claire incident, Quidditch games were moved back a week - Eddie woke up super late and immediately threw himself out of bed and ran downstairs to breakfast, determined not to miss his own Quidditch match. He had a hasty breakfast and was almost outside when he realized he left his broom up in his dorm. At once, he dashed to the common room to get it, and slipped on some water. As he was getting up, he heard a noise.

The basilisk, he thought. Closing his eyes, he figured he'd get up slowly, and look at the ground to reduce the threat of him getting caught by the eyes. Wrong move. He opened his eyes- and he was staring right into a pool of water, and it was his unfortunate luck that the basilisk happened to be right over him - looking down. He was frozen instantly, and spoke no more, not even a scream escaping his body.