After the troll incident the students of Hogwarts looked at the Ravenclaw trio with a lot more respect.
The morning after Halloween Dumbledore announced that they had killed the troll and he awarded them thirty points each for bravery and courage.
The Slytherins guffawed at this and the Gryffindors looked upset that their reputation as the brave house was being taken, but the Ravenclaws congratulated the first years as those points might well give them the house cup.
The three of them also got far more people trying to befriend the suddenly popular first years. Unfortunately for them, the trio was perfectly content with how they were. While they studied with various groups, only the three of them worked on the more advanced things.
Harry was working on modifying spells, and learning Gobblygook, as well as learning the Latin based spell language that had no real name, fluently. He was also learning Runes, but that was a secondary project.
Hermione was learning Arithmacy and was trying to develop a basic form of techno magic.
Lisa was learning enchantment and was also trying to construct illusion based wards.
The three of them helped out one another, and were working together on other projects, along with keeping ahead of their peers in every one of their classes.
While Hermione and Harry were weak in Herbology, Lisa was weak in History, Hermione was rather bad at runes, and Harry was barely competent in Arithmacy, the three of them were able to cover one another's weaknesses to such a degree that all three of them were the top three of their year with almost no effort.
Of course, their peers were a bit resentful of their skill, and some of them decided to do something about it. The trouble was they underestimated the trio.
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One day as they were leaving the library talking about the successful test of Lisa's illusion ward, Malfoy stepped in front of them with his wand drawn.
Behind him were Crabb, Goyle, and two third years.
The three ravens were abnormally smart, within seconds they realized what this was.
Before Malfoy had a chance to say anything all three of them had drawn their wands.
"Lisa?" Harry asked quickly.
"Ready" she replied, already waving her wand.
Malfoy and the Slytherins seemed a bit taken aback at the efficient and casual reaction to their ambush.
"Hermione?" Harry asked again.
"One and five." She responded without hesitation.
Harry nodded.
Harry then turned to Malfoy and said "So what brings you and your friends to see us Malfoy?"
Malfoy frowned for a moment, but then decided to continue as if nothing had changed.
"Well, Potter," Malfoy sneered "you have been upsetting a lot of pureblood students with your showing off, it stops now."
Harry frowned "And if we choose to ignore your unsolicited advice?" he said silkily.
Malfoy grinned
"Well then my friends and I here would have to teach you to obey your superiors."
"Done" Lisa announced.
The next few seconds looked quite different from the perspectives of the Slytherins and the Ravenclaws.
To the Slytherins, it looked like all three Ravens turned and ran; shooting basic tickling charms over their shoulders.
The Slytherins, not being very bright, immediately started shooting curses at the Raven's backs and chased after them.
In those few seconds, while they were chasing the Ravens, the two third years tripped and fell.
Seconds later the three first year Slytherins fell victim to modified itching hexes.
As he fell, Malfoy saw the Ravenclaws they were pursuing fade away.
From the Ravens perspective, the Slytherins all charged down the hall throwing spells at the wall. Harry and Hermione split to the walls and then attacked the Slytherins from behind.
Hermione threw two trip jinxes at the third years, and Harry hit the first years with his own version of the itching hex. One that was far more potent.
Lisa, not missing a beat grabbed the wands of all five of the attackers.
"Good work Lisa, at least we know your illusion ward works now." Harry said with a grin.
The three Ravens grinned and Lisa dispelled her ward.
The Slytherins couldn't understand what happened, one moment they were chasing the Ravens, the next they were on the floor disarmed, and the first years were franticly scratching their bodies.
When they heard what Harry said, the two third year's eyes went wide.
Warding was a post OWL discipline. If a first year was able to not only design one, but raise it in the seconds before a fight, that was not someone they wanted to be messing with.
This time the ward had been relatively benign, it just gave them the wrong targets to curse, next time the ward might be nastier.
After all, judging from the writhing of the first years, these Ravens already knew some pretty vicious spells.
The Ravens left the Slytherins in the hall; they would let the third years take Malfoy and his band of idiots to the hospital wing.
The three of them went directly to professor Flitwick's office.
Harry knocked, and the professor called them in.
"Mr. Potter" Flitwick said in surprise "What brings you here?"
Lisa placed the five wands of the Slytherins on his desk.
"These are the wands of three first year, and two third year, Slytherins who attempted to attack us outside of the library." Hermione said firmly.
Flitwick smiled.
"And how did you come to be in possession of your attackers wands?" Flitwick asked with a touch of amusement."
Harry said "We incapacitated and disarmed our attackers before they could do more than attack a wall."
Flitwick's mouth twitched. "I see, and where are these attackers now?"
Lisa snorted "If the third years have any sense they are in the hospital wing, if not, then they are probably still writhing on the ground where we left them."
Flitwick frowned for a moment. "Why would they be writhing on the ground? What did you hit them with?"
"Itching hexes sir." Harry said without hesitation.
"And I used trip jinxes sir." Hermione said a moment later.
Flitwick nodded and said "Why don't I keep these wands as evidence and you can tell me what happened."
They nodded and ten minutes later the three of them left Flitwick's office and returned to the common room, where they excitedly began discussing the effects of Lisa's illusion Ward.
Of course unknown to them, they had started another phase in the points war.
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Snape stormed into Flitwick's office not one hour after the attack and loudly proclaimed that Flitwick's Ravenclaws had viciously cursed three of his first years.
"I demand that they be expelled Flitwick!" he shrieked. "Potter has gone too far!"
Flitwick just chuckled.
"What's more, Potter stole my godson's wand! I want that back, and if the brat broke it then I want him to pay the largest fine he can!"
Flitwick chuckled again.
"I have your godson's wand Severus, unfortunately it is being held for evidence." Flitwick said with a grin.
"Evidence? Evidence of What?" Snape shrieked.
"Why your Godson's attempted assault of three of my student Severus, surely your godson mentioned that he was the aggressor." Flitwick said sweetly.
"The Potter brat is lying!" Snape yelled.
"Really Severus, I trust Mr. Potter's word and that of his two friends over anything your Godson or his thugs have to say."
Snape turned purple and stormed out.
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The next couple of days saw a dramatic rise in detentions assigned by Snape. He specifically assigned detentions to Harry and his friends every day.
This was extremely annoying to Harry and his friends for two reasons. One, they knew they were being punished for defending themselves, two, it reduced the time they had to spend on their extra projects.
After nearly a week of getting multiple detentions from Snape every single day, they complained to Flitwick. Unfortunately he couldn't do anything to curtail Snape's excessive detentions.
Harry Hermione and Lisa decided to take matters in their own hands. They created a petition that said they would not attend any of Snape's detentions so long as they were assigned on biased and unwarranted grounds.
The petition was passed around, and practically everyone in Ravenclaw signed it. It took only a few days for word to get out, and nearly all of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff signed it as well.
Harry Hermione and Lisa delivered three copies of the signed petition to professor Flitwick, and another three copies to Professor McGonagall.
The trio was also careful to keep four other copies for themselves. One protected by each of them, and one more in hiding.
The day after they turned in the petitions, not a single person attended Snape's assigned detentions.
Dumbledore was furious, but he couldn't stop a school wide movement that was supported by a vast majority of the staff and student body.
Uncaring of the firestorm they had just brewed, the Ravenclaw trio went right back to working on their extracurricular projects.
During this time, the three of them also explored the castle during the day.
As Christmas approached, Hermione and Lisa both told Harry they were going home for the holidays.
Harry was depressed for a few days; he didn't want to return to Private Drive until he had to.
Hermione of course came to the rescue and invited Harry to her place for Christmas.
Harry was delighted at that idea, and Hermione got her parents approval later that week via owl.
Harry asked Hermione if they would be able to visit Gringotts over the Christmas break, and Hermione said her parents wouldn't mind.
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Before Christmas break Harry was called into Dumbledore's office. Professor Flitwick gave him the password, and Harry was told to go after dinner.
Harry walked to the office, and said the password (lemon pops) before walking up the steps.
"Come in Harry" Dumbledore said just as he was about to knock.
A bit disturbed, but realizing that there would be no one else on the stairs if he had an appointment, Harry opened the door.
He looked around for a bit, and then sat down facing Dumbledore.
"Harry my boy, I hope you are well?" Dumbledore said warmly.
"Yes headmaster." Harry replied emotionlessly.
"Good, good." Dumbledore said jovially. "And you're fitting in well in Ravenclaw?"
Harry nodded before saying "Headmaster I am currently missing a very interesting study session with my friends, would you mind getting to the point?"
Dumbledore frowned for a moment before saying "Yes, I apologize Mr. Potter, I was looking through the list of students leaving for the holidays and I noticed that your name was down."
Harry nodded; frowning as he tried to figure out what Dumbledore was getting at.
"I was naturally a bit surprised that a wizard such as yourself would willing return to the muggle world after so little time here."
Harry said nothing simply stared at Dumbledore impassively. Dumbledore stared right back.
Finally Harry said "I don't see how whether I return to the muggle world or not in any way affects you or your school headmaster."
Dumbledore frowned. "Like it or not Mr. Potter you are famous in our world, and thus it is a concern when you decide to leave."
Harry frowned and said. "I am coming back headmaster; you need not worry about that." Harry stood up "If that is all…"
"Actually no, Mr. Potter." Dumbledore said firmly. "I would like to know where you will be staying for your holiday."
Harry stiffened as he faced the door. "I don't believe that is any of your business headmaster." He said coldly. Harry stalked out of Dumbledore's office with many more questions than when he came in.
When Harry was gone, Dumbledore cursed. If the boy was going home to his relatives then they were not as unpleasant as he thought, meaning Harry would no doubt return to the muggle world if he was pushed to far. This was problematic as Dumbledore planned to push him in order to beat Voldemort. This was a problem, problems had to be rectified.
Harry returned to the library, where the girls were waiting for him. They immediately noticed that he was upset, despite how well he hid it.
"What happened?" Hermione asked in concern.
"Dumbledore decided to overstep his bounds as a headmaster and ask where I would be for the holidays." Harry said angrily.
The girls looked confused. Harry continued "He also tried to convince me to stay here because I'm famous and it wouldn't look good if The-Boy-Who-Lived" he sneered at the title, "left the wizarding world after only a few months."
The girls were surprised at Dumbledore's stupidity. "He tried to manipulate you?" Hermione said in disbelief.
Lisa laughed. "Famous or not, you're one of the most perceptive people I've ever met, what was he thinking?"
"I don't think he was." Harry grumbled.
This set the girls to laughing so hard that even Harry joined in eventually. After getting that out of their systems, the three of them went back to work.
The Christmas holiday vacation finally arrived and the three friends took the same carriage down to the Hogwarts express.
Grabbing a compartment, they talked about holiday plans and previous holidays most of the way back.
Weasley tried to get in their compartment for a few minutes, but Lisa had raised her illusion ward so he kept trying to open the door that was a meter to the right.
After trying to grab a handle ten times only to bruise his hand on the wall, Weasley left to find a compartment he could enter.
When they reached the station they got off the train, and Harry and Hermione hugged Lisa who was going to celebrate with her own family. They said goodbye and Lisa went to find her parents.
Hermione dragged Harry over to the muggle side of the platform and waved to her parents. Her parents waved back, and Hermione dragged him over to them.
"Hi mum, hi dad, I missed you." She said as she hugged her parents. "Oh, this is Harry Potter mum; he's the boy I was telling you about."
Harry blushed for a moment, and then held out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Granger." He said politely.
Mrs. Ganger laughed and hugged Harry. Then Mr. Granger shook his hand.
"Nice to meet you too son, just call us Dan and Emma, come on we had best get going."
Hermione began asking a barrage of questions as they started walking towards the car. She seemed to be asking about everything from new books, to how business was going in London all at the same time.
"Hermione, relax, you'll get your answers later." Harry said teasingly.
Hermione looked at him and gasped in mock horror before subsiding.
Mrs. Granger looked at her husband "I don't believe it; a boy silenced Hermione and didn't even have to kiss her to do it." She laughed.
Hermione and Harry both went tomato red when they heard her comment.
Both of Hermione's parents laughed at the obvious discomfort the children were now showing.
Though he would never admit it, Hermione's father breathed a sigh of relief that those words still embarrassed the two.
They put Harry and Hermione's trunks in the car and the four of them drove toward Hermione's house.
(AN)
I know, I know, short chapter, but I wanted to cut it off here because the holidays and the return to Hogwarts are going to be interesting.
Now, last chapter I asked whether Harry should be Daniel. Well the result is in, Harry will be Daniel.
Just kidding, the results were overwhelming. There were only three pro Harry Jackson reviews, and eighty some odd pro independent reviews.
Obviously a vast majority of you want them to be different characters, and since that was the way I was leaning anyway, that's what's going to happen.
I am deeply flattered; this has become my most popular and most reviewed story very quickly, especially considering it is my newest story.
Happy New Year
