It was with something of a shock that Harry realized, on reaching Platform Nine And Three Quarters, that not only was Percy no longer at Hogwarts but Harry himself was halfway between starting Hogwarts and starting seventh year.

It felt like the time had flown by (not unlike a dragon, perhaps) and so once he was in the platform itself Harry decided to just stop by the entrance and watch for a few minutes.

Watching all the witches and wizards – young and old – made him feel quite happy. It was slightly marred by the memory that some of them were the sort of people to laugh at Muggles being floated around, but then again none of them wanted to admit it so that meant most people were fundamentally pretty decent.

And there was how Harry himself had ended up being treated. Everyone could see he was a dragon, and most people just didn't care that much.

"Wow!" someone said, right by Harry's wing, and he jumped.

"See?" Colin asked. "I told you I went to school with a dragon!"

"Morning, Colin," Harry said, then looked at the slightly smaller Colin next to him. "Is this your brother Dennis? You told me about him once."

"That's right!" Colin agreed. "Dennis is a wizard too!"

"It's nice to meet you, then," Harry said.

"Do your wings work?" Dennis said. "Can you fly with them?"

Harry nodded, but then explained that it wouldn't be very polite to demonstrate because he might inconvenience people. Then he said hello to Mr. and Mrs. Creevey, as well, though he had to do the usual thing where he explained that, yes, he was actually a dragon.

As a bit of an experiment, Harry tried using a bluebell flames spell with his fire breath instead of using his wand. That meant he exhaled a small amount of the harmless blue fire, and while he probably still looked like a fire breathing human instead of a fire breathing dragon it was at least a fun way to show off.

Dennis' eyes were huge by the end of the conversation, and Harry would have said they were like saucers except that saucers were actually really big and Harry hadn't ever seen anyone except Nora with eyes that big.

When he actually got around to getting on the train, Harry didn't have to go far before he found the right compartment. None of the Weasleys had arrived yet, but Hermione and Dean were there, and Neville arrived just a minute or so after Harry did.

Harry duly took his position up on the luggage rack, to free up some space, and opened up the backpack full of books he'd brought with him.

"Is anyone interested in something?" he asked.

"I'd quite like one of the Discworld ones," Hermione asked. "What about you, Dean?"

"Not sure," Dean admitted.

Harry rummaged around for the one Hermione was after, and handed her down Reaper Man as the first Terry Pratchett book he could find. The second one was Only You Can Save Mankind, and Dean was interested enough to give that a go.

Since he didn't want to leave Neville as the only one without a book, Harry dug a bit deeper before finding the first of the Elenium books. He offered it to his friend, but Neville declined – instead deciding to play some solo chess, at least at first – so Harry just decided he may as well re-read it himself.

That left them in a quiet, contented silence for the next few minutes, pierced only by the thumps and crashes of Neville's travel chess set beating itself up, until the compartment door slid open and four Weasleys came in.

Fred, George, and their friend Lee Jordan all worked together to expand the compartment, and then Ron reminded everyone of the idea he'd had on the train the previous year. Harry had to admit he'd forgotten it, but once he'd mentioned it everyone quickly went along with it.

One of the funny things about reading a book series again, Harry knew, was that when you came to bits early on with knowledge about what happened later you could get sort of funny results.

Like the bit where the reader was first introduced to Sephrenia in The Diamond Throne, where there were all sorts of things the narrator said about her which were either completely wrong or merely very funny if you'd read Domes of Fire.

Harry was just smirking at the bit where Sephrenia claimed to be illiterate when there was a knock on the door.

It slid open a moment later, and a couple of young boys who Harry didn't recognize looked in.

"Hi, is there… space… in… here?" one of them asked, his voice trailing off as he stared at the inside of the compartment.

Harry had to admit that he could sort of understand their confusion.

In the first place, this compartment was twice as big as it should have been, but beyond that there was the contents of the compartment. Ginny, Luna and Lee Jordan were normal enough, using an expansive enough definition of normal to admit Luna Lovegood, but then there was a squirrel reading a science book and a panther playing chess.

Next to the panther was a little crow turning the pages on Only You Can Save Mankind, and then a mink and a pine marten making drawings on a piece of parchment. Then there was a sphinx, paws crossed to support her head and a big book of number puzzles open in front of her.

The final touch would have been the warg consulting some sheet music, or perhaps the honest-to-goodness dinosaur halfway through Reaper Man, but then Harry waved and the reaction of the new students made Harry realize that actually the final touch was him.

"Oh, okay, um… we'll try somewhere else?" the other said, and slid the compartment door closed again.

The pine marten turned back into a Twin, and sniggered.

"Brilliant idea, Ronnie-nutkins," he said. "That's five so far!"

Some more familiar faces showed up as the Hogwarts Express filled up, a few of them to join (Tiobald parked his wheelchair in the corner and started talking to Luna) and others to just say hello, like Blaise or Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail.

In the case of the Barlos girls, they explained apologetically that there were half a dozen Second Year girls all in the same compartment and they were going down there, but they'd hardly finished before everyone assured them that it was fine and nobody there was going to think less of them.

Eleven o'clock rolled around soon enough, though, and the Hogwarts Express picked up speed and rolled out of Platform Nine And Three Quarters. Harry craned his neck a little to watch through the window, enjoying the sight, then decided to raise a question.

"Is there a reason why we should wait to get changed?" he asked. "Or could we just do it early on?"

Ron blurred back into his more customary form, and frowned. "Might want to wait until the lady with the snacks comes around, mate," he suggested. "Otherwise there'd be lots of us waiting in the hallway and we might get in her way."

He scratched his head. "Couldn't you have come in robes anyway?"

"No, Muggles see if I'm wearing them," Harry explained. "It's one of the weird things."

"Some of us decided to come in robes anyway," Tanisis said, indicating her own. "I couldn't go on the concourse anyway."

"Have you tested that?" Lee asked. "Harry can."

"Actually, yes, she did," Ginny supplied. "It was one of the times Mum's second cousin came around, when the Sanuras were visiting Luna – bit awkward, but we managed to get the timing sorted out. He could see they were sphinxes."

"Makes sense," Lee admitted. "Unless Squibs see things differently to Muggles."

"I don't think I've ever been able to ask any," Harry replied.

"What about Filch, the caretaker?" Ron suggested. "Everyone says he's a Squib."

Harry thought about that, and was about to explain how he felt it would be awfully impolite to go up to Mr. Filch and ask if he was a Squib when there was a knock at the door.

"Huh," Ron said, and reverted back to Nutkin.

"Come in," Harry invited, after a moment when he realized nobody else was sure whose job it was to say so.

The door slid aside, and a rather nervous-looking centaur peered inside – then took a step backwards in surprise.

"Ah..." he began. "Someone further up the train said I should try this compartment?"

"That sounds like they had very good taste," Luna said with a smile. "Are you a first year?"

"I… am, yes," the centaur agreed – Harry wasn't sure if the right word was boy, or colt, or something in between that was a special-issue term for centaurs only. "Are all of you Hogwarts students as well?"

He seemed especially perturbed by Hermione.

Tiobald said something, fingers flicking, and Luna translated. "Yes, we're all Hogwarts students. Some of us are as surprised as you are."

Hermione shifted back to human, which made the centaur relax a bit, and he walked slowly in before shutting the door behind him.

"I knew about June," he said. "And – sorry, I don't know many of the names."

"Tanisis," Tanisis offered, rising to all fours before padding over and offering a paw.

The centaur boy (Harry had decided to use boy for now) shook it, then stepped back with one hoof and bowed slightly. "Thank you for your help in saving my father."

"Oh, you were at that fight that happened at the forest, weren't you?" Harry realized. "Sorry, I didn't recognize you."

"Yes – I was," the centaur agreed. "And thank you as well..."

June's tongue lolled out for a moment. "I think we'll just all consider ourselves thanked, Conal."

Conal's reaction to that was a faint sigh of relief.

From the way Conal described it, it seemed that the events of the battle at the forest's edge had been quite extensive.

Some centaurs didn't like wizards or want anything to do with them – the name Conal mentioned was Bane – while others, like Firenze (who Harry remembered well) had always liked the idea of trying to be friendly with humans.

Most of them had sort of been in the middle, not quite sure what to think, and apparently they'd been paying a lot of attention to how Tiobald had been getting on. That prompted a wave from the Selkie boy, who said that he'd done quite well in most of his exams but had had a bit of trouble with his flying lessons, and then Conal said that the thing which had really made up minds was how his father – Ronan – had been saved and then healed by wizards and witches during and after the battle.

It seemed that Bane still didn't want anything to do with wizards, but Conal had decided to take a risk and his uncle Firenze had been very encouraging.

"I think I'm the first centaur to have a wand," he added. "Or the first in a very long time."

"Did you go to the same place I did for robes?" Tanisis asked. "Madam Malkin?"

"Yes – yes, I did," Conal agreed. "She said robes for absolutely all occasions, and she was right."

Lapcat gave a feline snigger, then shifted back to Neville to speak.

"I was there when Harry went for his first set of robes," he explained. "Madam Malkin was really surprised, then. I bet she isn't any more, though."

"Yeah, probably not," Lee Jordan agreed. "Not after doing a three headed dog last year. Snazzy robes, though."

"Any idea what House you'll be in?" Ginny said. "We don't have anyone here from Slytherin, but we know a few of them so we could tell you what it's like."

She frowned down at her twin elder brothers, still in the form of mustelids. "Though I do sometimes think Fred and George should have gone to Slytherin."

Trouble reverted from Pine Marten to Weasley, and gasped. "For shame, Ginevra! Why do you insult us so?"

"I'm not insulting you," Ginny replied placidly. "I'm just saying I think you're so good at being sneaky that you fooled the Sorting Hat."

"Can you actually do that?" Lee said. "Fool the Sorting Hat, I mean."

"If anyone's interested in trying it, it'd be the Slytherins," Neville said. "But, hold on, doesn't that mean anyone could be a really sneaky Slytherin?"

They all looked suspiciously at one another, at least until the giggles started.

The train ride was just as long as ever, the Hogwarts Express speeding north through England on a railway route that probably went straight through Muggle stations at full speed without being noticed, and Harry and his friends all settled down to let time pass around them.

Conal was still a little nervous, at first, and after being assured that nobody here had any problem with him he went over and sat down next to June.

Harry sort of overheard her talking to him about the Unusually Shaped Society and how helpful it was, which gave him a nice warm feeling about being able to help people (and not the same kind of nice warm feeling when he was about to breathe fire).

Meanwhile, now that it wasn't likely that anyone else would be coming along to look into their compartment, Animagi started reverting back to forms where they could do things like talk. Harry felt a bit guilty about how funny it was when Ron changed back and Conal jumped, because it seemed that the young centaur had completely failed to notice Nutkin, but then Conal shook his head and laughed softly before raising a hand in surrender.

So that was probably all right.

"It's been kind of weird, actually," Ron was saying, most of an hour later. "You remember that thing a couple of years ago with – well, with Peter Pettigrew?"

Nods, except for Conal who looked a little confused. Harry heard June say something about explaining it to him later, and he nodded.

"It's kind of like that, except that I didn't have to go and talk to the courts," Ron resumed. "Percy's being kept late at work all the time, I think it's because they're trying to work out if they actually know everything to keep the department running without him and he was Mr. Crouch's assistant."

"So there'd be a lot of things he'd be the only one to know," Harry realized out loud.

"Right," Ron agreed.

"He seems kind of happy about it, though," Ginny added. "Maybe it's because all the paperwork is like revising for exams."

That drew a few sniggers, but then there was a rattle outside the door.

"I'll get it," Harry volunteered, putting a bookmark in The Diamond Throne, and jumped down from the luggage rack to the floor of the compartment.

Working out exactly how much to get took a few minutes, and eventually Harry just decided there wasn't any problem with getting too much of anything and got enough that everyone should have at least something to enjoy.

Then Ron started biting tiny little bits off reasonable-looking Every Flavour Beans, putting the ones he liked the taste of in a little pile, and told everyone about how Charlie was staying over for some reason that none of them were really sure of. He worked in Romania, after all, but it seemed as though there was something that meant he could stay in England without any trouble?

It all sounded very strange, and it sort of made Harry wonder about the thing that Sirius hadn't been told about because it might have meant he'd give it away. He volunteered that information, and apparently Mr. Weasley did know because all four Weasleys in the compartment promptly groaned.

Then, his piece said, Ron turned into Nutkin and started going through his selected Every Flavour Beans now they were much bigger than before.

It was still a little bit awkward for everyone to get changed. Harry ended up feeling silly, because he hadn't bothered to bring his tent – it was with the rest of his things being delivered to the castle by Kreacher, who was glad to help – and if he had then they could have just gone in there and used the separate rooms.

Instead it took a few relays to do it properly, even with how at least there was enough room for people like Harry to fully stretch out as they got changed, and he and Neville ended up helping Conal get his slightly fiddly robes sorted out.

By the time they were done it was getting dark, and Harry looked out the window to see the moon before remembering that because the full moon had been about a week and a half ago that meant the moon set before the sun did.

After three years of Astronomy Harry sort of felt he should have known that by now.

Then the train was coming to a stop, and Harry heard June assuring Conal that they were all going to be going to the same place and that the First Years got a special treat by going a different way to the castle.

It was nice of her to be thoughtful like that.

On the way up to the castle, Ron somehow found something to talk about that he hadn't even mentioned over the previous several hours, which Harry found kind of impressive.

"What I was thinking about," he began, "was brooms."

"Somehow I'm not surprised," Dean joked.

"Yeah, yeah," Ron replied, chuckling. "But – well, it wasn't just the World Cup, but that was part of it. I was wondering how high brooms can actually go, and if there's a limit."

Pacing alongside the Thestral carriage, Harry saw Ron wave his hand. "So I tried to find out, but Charlie doesn't know and the best Percy could do was point out that people need an air supply to go high. So maybe brooms can just keep going forever?"

"I'm not sure I'd trust a broom to keep going forever," Neville contributed. "Any ideas, Hermione? Ginny?"

"Maybe brooms need air to push off?" Harry suggested. "I know I can only fly so high before it gets so the air's too thin and my wings don't work well."

"But if that was… hold on," Hermione frowned. "Do we actually know if brooms are faster when they're higher up?"

"I've read lots of broom magazines," Ginny told her. "I've only ever seen broom top speeds mentioned, not top speeds at different heights."

"Then we should do an experiment," Hermione said. "To see if brooms go faster, slower, or the same speed when they're higher up."

"You've lost me," Ron admitted.

"Well, the air's thinner higher up," Hermione began. "Like Harry said. And I think aeroplanes could go faster if they were higher up except that they need to push against air – with propellors or jets or things like that," she elaborated. "So there's less air to get in the way, but less air to push with. And there are rocket planes which don't have that problem."

"Right, like the Space Shuttle," Ron picked up. "It's kind of awkward because the faster they go low down the more they have to push air out of the way, but they also want to get higher up as quickly as possible because they have to lift all the fuel they're going to use higher up."

"So," Hermione resumed. "If a broom doesn't depend on air, it should go faster higher up. Unless it just always goes at the same speed…"

"You can speed up in a dive," Dean pointed out. "Does that mean anything?"

"...I think I need some parchment," Hermione decided.

The discussion took them all the way up to the castle, and to their places in the Great Hall as well – and drew in a few of the people they sat near, as well.

It seemed like nobody had any actual idea what the limits of brooms were, or if anyone did it was in something Harry hadn't read yet. That gave him a bit of a snigger at the idea of the information they were after being hidden in Witch Weekly instead of Which Broomstick, but before long the ghosts came swooping through the wall and the doors opened to admit the First Years.

As this was his fourth Sorting, Harry decided to see if he could work out how unusual people thought Conal was. He was certainly the first centaur to come to Hogwarts, unless you defined 'come to Hogwarts' quite broadly Harry supposed, but he wasn't the first Beast to come to Hogwarts and in fact no matter what House he ended up in he wouldn't be the first non-human there.

Then Harry looked again at the rest of the First Years as the Sorting Hat kept singing, to see if he could see any other non human students. There didn't seem to be anyone else who wasn't human, though with kitsune or veela it could apparently be quite hard to tell and Harry had never seen or heard of a young hag.

The very idea seemed a bit strange.

Suddenly he wanted to get out his copy of Fantastic Beasts to see if he could work out which other types of non-human would be able to actually understand a Hogwarts education. He was fairly sure there was something in there about griffins having jobs or something? But it would be rude to interrupt the Sorting like that, and indeed someone called Stewart Ackerley was already being Sorted into Ravenclaw.

Then someone went to Slytherin (and sat down in an empty space next to the Smiths, which was probably bad news for Fred and George). They were followed by a girl who went to Hufflepuff, and then a boy (who also went to Hufflepuff) and Professor McGonagall read out her next name.

"Conal," she said.

The young centaur began to step forwards, but then there was a wave of whispering throughout the hall.

"What's his first name?" someone called.

"That is his first name, Mr. Matthews," Professor McGonagall said sharply.

That didn't actually get everyone to stop talking, though they did get a lot quieter, and Conal headed over to pick up the Sorting Hat and put it on his head.

After about twenty seconds or so, the hat decided he should go to Hufflepuff. Well, actually the hat decided he should go to HUFFLEPUFF, but that was just how the Sorting Hat was.

Straight after that, Dennis Creevey became the first new Gryffindor. He clearly wanted to sit next to Harry, but there were already quite a lot of people doing that and so instead he sat next to his brother (who wasn't far from Harry anyway, so Harry took the time to say hello again).

After everyone was Sorted, and Professor Dumbledore said a few words (this time they were 'Get', 'On', 'With' and 'It'), the Sorting Feast began. It was always a treat to eat a Hogwarts feast, and Harry was happy to get stuck in – Kreacher was a perfectly fine cook, but the inventiveness of over a hundred House-Elves in Hogwarts was hard to equal.

Just from what he could see at the moment there was a roast pizza with all the trimmings – and Harry had never seen a pizza with toppings of chicken, roast potato, carrot, sprout and stuffing – not far from a dish of mashed potato and sausages mixed with parsnips made to look like sausages, and next to both of those was what appeared to be a whole meat pie half submerged in mushy peas.

Harry wasn't entirely sure you were supposed to leave the meat dish, but he solved that by taking the dish off and eating through that over the next few minutes.

A little further into the meal he remembered Conal, and decided to check on him. It didn't take much doing, as the Hufflepuff table was next to the Gryffindor one, and he only had to look around to see that June was going through the dishes with Conal to see which ones were okay.

Harry had to admit he was quite surprised to see Conal take a few slices of chicken, but then again he supposed that a centaur was half human as well as half horse. (Or maybe it was disrespectful to think like that and it was better to just say they were all centaur.)

Were horses entirely herbivorous in the first place? Harry thought so, but it was the sort of probably-someone-would-have-said thought so which he was trying to recognize as meaning he wasn't actually sure. So maybe he'd need to look that up.

Neville brought his attention to a small pie with a dragon flag on it, one of the special things the Hogwarts House-Elves cooked for him and one he hadn't noticed yet, and Harry sniffed it before taking a bite.

The tang to it was unexpected but delicious, and after thinking about it for a moment Harry realized that that was because about half of the filling was that nice kimchi stuff that sometimes turned up when Sirius got takeout in London.

Sirius didn't like it for some reason, but Harry did, and he had to wonder why it was a 'Harry-only' pie. It wasn't like it had iron shavings in it or something.

Finally, when the puddings had been cleared away, everyone sort of took on an expectant hush as they looked up towards the High Table.

Either someone was missing, or Hagrid had been made the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, or Professor Dumbledore simply hadn't had enough time to hire someone new. Any of them was a possibility, as far as Harry was concerned, and though he did like Hagrid he thought the big man probably wouldn't be ideal for teaching higher-year Defence.

He would still be better than Mr. Lockhart, admittedly.

"Now, before we all head off to get some well-earned rest," Professor Dumbledore began, "I have a few announcements to make. First-"

He was interrupted by a loud BANG as the doors to the Great Hall opened.

The man who came through had one normal leg and one wooden leg, which thumped on the floor as he walked. He had one normal eye and one large electric-blue eye which seemed to be looking in all directions at once, and he had a tremendous network of scars across his face and a mane of dark grey hair.

Harry sort of thought that the man really needed some kind of thunderstorm going on as he entered the building, though, and the breezy summer night they'd been having just wasn't quite right.

It was almost a shame, because that could have been a really good entrance. But you couldn't just write the weather you wanted.

"Ah," Professor Dumbledore said, pleasantly, as the new arrival walked up the middle of the hall. "It seems my announcement about the school mascot had best wait for later."

He looked out across the hall. "I imagine some of you have noticed that Mr. Lupin is not with us, and – alas – that is not simply because he missed the train. Mr. Lupin has taken an unexpected leave of absence to spend more time with his newly discovered family, and to recover from some injuries suffered when he first met them. I am sure we all wish him a speedy recovery."

"What?" Colin whispered, baffled. "What happened? How can you discover a family and get injured – Harry, do you know?"

Harry was going to answer, but Dumbledore was speaking again.

"As a result of a quite inconveniently timed vacancy, I have approached my good friend Alastor Moody to take up the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. He was kind enough to agree so long as his contract expires at least two full months before the end of the school year, and I hope that we can expect Professor Lupin to be back with us by then."

Dumbledore turned to invite the new Professor Moody to speak, but the grizzled old wizard had already sat down and taken a drink out of a small flask.

It was nice to know that Remus hadn't lost his job because of what happened. Harry hadn't thought Dumbledore would be that sort of person, but being sure of it was something else.

As the next few announcements were made, mostly the ones Harry had heard before about banned products and how not all dragons at the school were dangerous, he took the time to have a closer look at Professor Moody.

He sort of remembered Dora mentioning Professor Moody once before, mostly as a really famous dark-wizard-catcher who happened to be roughly as crazy as Professor Dumbledore in different ways, and by the looks of him he'd been hit by just about every curse in existence over the course of his career. It was kind of amazing to think that someone could do that and survive, especially without being a dragon, and he wondered what Professor Moody would have to teach them.

(Though admittedly 'duck' was probably not one of the things he was very good at, judging by the evidence.)

"Penultimately," Professor Dumbledore said, drawing his attention again, "and before we all get on to the singing that our choir has doubtless prepared, I wish to inform everyone that it will not be possible to hold the Quidditch Cup this year."

"You what?!" Fred demanded.

"I've only just made the team!" Ron agreed, sounding terribly offended.

The rest of Gryffindor didn't seem happy either, to say nothing of the other three houses, and Harry had to wonder just what could cause that.

Only Dean seemed at all pleased, and when Harry glanced at him his friend just said that he'd explain later.

"This is because of an event that will sadly be pre-empting it," Professor Dumbledore continued. "It is my great pleasure to announce that Hogwarts will be hosting the Triwizard Tournament this year."

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that, Professor?" George asked loudly. "I thought you said there'd be the Triwizard Tournament this year."

"Your hearing is as good as ever, I see, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore told him, as muttering spread through the hall. "We are indeed to be hosting the Triwizard Tournament. I do hope it goes splendidly."

Professor Burbage coughed.

"Yes?" Dumbledore asked, turning. "Is there a problem?"

Harry didn't quite catch what the Muggle Studies professor said, but Dumbledore nodded before turning back to the students. "As I have just been reminded, not all of you will be fully aware of what the Triwizard Tournament actually is. Will those who already know please plug your ears, so you will not be dreadfully bored by what I will now say?"

Nobody did, and Dumbledore smiled. "Excellent. I do so dislike causing boredom."

He gave an explanation of what the Triwizard Tournament was – a competition between the magical schools at Beauxbatons, Durmstrang and of course Hogwarts, where champions represented their schools and competed in three magical tasks. The most skilled witches and wizards of each school also ended up spending much of the year over at the host school, to promote cultural unity, and Harry wondered if that meant that those most skilled witches and wizards were going to be spending most of their final year taking classes in another language.

Given how bad the Defence teachers had been at Hogwarts some years, it sounded like that might have caused problems. Harry could barely imagine how bad it would have been for a seventh-year from France to be taught Defence by Mr. Lockhart, and the idea it might have given them about what British wizards were like.

Then he mentioned how a lot of people had died in previous Triwizard Tournaments, and that they had been working very hard indeed to ensure that this time there was going to be no mortal peril.

Which sounded like a big improvement, though Harry did wonder if Muggles would ever want to re-start a tournament if people had died so often during the old version of it.

Had people died during the old version of the Olympics? It sounded sort of familiar.

The last bit of the announcement was how only people who were over seventeen years old would be allowed to take part, which a lot of people seemed quite offended by. Harry wasn't one of them, because it sounded sort of interesting but he wasn't all that fussed, but then again it did seem a bit unfair to have such a high age limit on something that was only held every five years to begin with.

Wouldn't that mean that some students would never be able to take part at all? Harry and Neville would only be spending one school year at Hogwarts after turning seventeen, and Fred and George would actually be turning seventeen this year but still wouldn't be able to compete.

It'd make more sense to Harry to have a year limit, such as someone having to have done their OWLs, and then make it every other year instead of every five years. But maybe that made too much sense.

"So why are we going up this way?" one of the first-years asked. "The big stairs are over there."

"This way's quicker," Harry heard Colin explain, and there was a papery sound as he unfolded his copy of the Hogwarts Map. "Look, if you go up this way you skip a floor. It's kind of hard to remember, but it's really helpful."

"Where did you get that map?" someone else said. "Is it moving?"

"I wonder how good Mr. Moody is going to be as a teacher," Hermione said, and Harry switched his attention (and his ears) from listening to what was behind him to listening more generally to things around him.

"Blimey, that looked cool," Ron opined. "Can you do that again?"

Harry thought for a moment about what Ron might mean, then twitched his ears. He overdid it, though, and his glasses sprang up in the air for a moment before he managed to catch them as they landed.

Ron sniggered. "I feel like applauding," he explained. "Anyway, I think Dad talked about him once, he's really good at teaching you things if he doesn't think you're secretly an assassin out to kill him or something."

"What I don't know is why he's quitting two months before the end of the year," Hermione mused, sounding quite annoyed. "It's going to mean our education is a mess again, isn't it?"

"I think it's the curse," Neville pointed out. "Or is it a jinx? Anyway, Moody's supposed to be really paranoid, so that might be why."

"If I'd had the kind of life to get that many scars I'd be paranoid," Dean suggested. "At that point it's just being, you know, sensible."

He frowned. "Actually, how does the jinx work, anyway? What have we seen so far?"

"Well, Quirrel imploded," Harry said, counting them off on his wing as they went from the third floor straight to the fifth floor without involving the fourth. "Lockhart got exposed as a fraud, and Remus got badly injured. But Sue D. Nym and that Auror we had to finish out our first year were fine. Maybe it only counts for people who do a whole year."

"Or people who start the year," Ron corrected. "Because two of them didn't make it through a whole year."

"Right," Dean agreed. "Why can't they just ditch Defence Against the Dark Arts and start a new class that does the same things? Like… Applied Defence, or Magical Protection?"

Hermione hissed through her teeth. "Oh, they tried that," she said. "It… didn't go very well. It even made it into Hogwarts: A History."

"It did?" Harry asked. "Blimey."

A lot of things hadn't made it into Hogwarts: A History, because it had over a thousand years to cover. (Or over a thousand years between covers, that was another way to think of it.)

"What happened?" Dean said. "I'm kind of morbidly curious now."

"Well… he fell down the stairs," Hermione told them.

Ron stopped to look at her, until he realized he was standing in the way of about a hundred Gryffindors and got moving again. "You what? Fell down the stairs? That doesn't sound too bad."

"It was a previously unknown route through the castle," Hermione explained. "He fell for half an hour – and it was only about the fourth of September. He barely managed to teach more than his first class."

Harry winced.

He could see how that would be painful.

"Of course, the next teacher wasn't very good," Hermione continued. "Or that's what the books say. But she at least made it through the year."

"What I don't get is the thing with Quidditch," Fred grumbled in the common room. "The Triwizard Tournament is cool, and all, but unless one of our plans works neither of us is going to be able to take part."

"And there's definitely going to be at least twenty-seven Quidditch players who aren't Hogwarts Champion," George agreed, taking up the thread of the argument. "Why can't the Quidditch tournament just go on without any changes?"

"Maybe it's something about the organization of the tournament," Cormac suggested. "You know, they need the pitch or something."

"How long are these bloody tasks going to be, then?" Ron demanded.

"Ron," Hermione cautioned him. "Watch your language around the first years."

"Sorry," Ron said.

Looking around, Harry could see that most of the Gryffindors weren't going up to bed yet – everyone was too interested in talking about the Triwizard Tournament, or in some cases their poor wounded Quidditch.

"Hmm..." Ron mused. "Hermione – any idea how long the tasks normally take?"

"Give me a minute," Hermione asked, shifted to Clever Girl, and went running up the stairs.

"What the crap?" one of the First Years asked. "What just happened? Did she turn into a fluffy velociraptor?"

"Yeah, she's an Animagus," Flopsy agreed, as Ron muttered something about language. "It's really cool if you ask us."

"I'm guessing you're Muggleborn?" Cottontail added.

The girl shook her head, suddenly a bit nervous.

"Halfblood, then," Flopsy guessed. "We talked about this last year. Muggles know a lot more about dinosaurs and stuff."

Hermione came running back down the stairs with a book. "According to Magical Games And Tournaments, the tasks are usually a few hours long – though they can involve a lot of time to prepare first."

She shrugged. "I've got no idea why they won't let you use the Quidditch pitch, sorry."

"Maybe now I can at least get a good footy tournament going instead," Dean suggested. "Or cricket? I think I know the rules and I bet some Beaters would love that."

"Don't Muggle referees have a white and black stripey uniform?" Ron said. "You could put paint on your feathers."

"Nev could put paint on his fur," Dean agreed. "Would you want to argue the rules with a panther?"

"Not if he's got a sword," Harry contributed.

"Colin?" Dennis asked. "Why didn't you say how amazing this school was before?"

"I didn't know if you'd get a letter, Dennis," Colin answered. "I didn't want you feeling too jealous."

"But there's dragons and sphinxes and centaurs and cerberusses and I think I saw a giant squid in the lake!" Dennis protested. "And there's someone who turns into a dinosaur!"

"We're not actually a cerberus," Mopsy called. "It's a common mistake, but that's just a name."

"It's like how Pegasus was a specific winged horse," Cottontail agreed.

Dennis Creevey looked a little overwhelmed by it all, so Harry decided to suggest that maybe everyone should get to bed or they'd be too tired tomorrow morning.

With Percy gone, someone had to say it.

AN:

In keeping with my vaguely obsessive attitude to research, yes, I did find a 1994 weather forecast for the first days of September.