Halloween

Even though they knew that this chapter was next, the trio all winced and exchanged glances, all of them wondering the same thing; can we escape now while it's safe? They had a quick conversation through small gestures and facial expressions, rather than actually using signs to talk, before they all sighed and sunk back into the couch, having collectively agreed that they should stay for this chapter; they would watch the reactions to see if they would have to escape for the chapter about the trap door, especially since that chapter wasn't able to have a calming draught. And honestly, compared to the other things they had gone through together, the troll was nothing.

Indeed, by the next morning Harry and Ron thought that meeting the three-headed dog had been an excellent adventure,

"Excuse me, you thought it was a what?" Mrs Weasley demanded.

"An adventure?" Harry and Ron said together, their tone making it come out as more of a question.

"It's either really valuable or really dangerous," said Ron.

"Or both," Luna said. Harry blinked at her, remembering what he said next.

"Or both," said Harry.

Several people looked people looked between Luna and Harry, shocked that they had both said the same thing.

"Which one was it?" Lee asked.

"Definitely both," the trio said.

All Neville cared about was never going near the dog again.

"Because I value my life," Neville deadpanned.

"Hey, we value our lives," Ron protested. Neville raised his eyebrow, not believing that at all.

"We do," Harry protested.

"Uh huh. Sure." Ron and Harry sent Neville mock-betrayed looks, while Hermione giggled at their antics.

Hermione was now refusing to speak to Harry and Ron, but she was such a bossy know-it-all that they saw this as an added bonus.

"Ronald," Mrs Weasley exclaimed, not able to believe that her son had been so rude.

"I was very bossy back then, wasn't I?" Hermione said, ignoring Mrs Weasley's scolding.

"You grew out of it," Harry said with a shrug.

"A Nimbus Two Thousand!" Ron moaned enviously. "I've never even touched one."

"Of course, you hadn't. They'd only been out for two months," Remus said logically.

"That's a broomstick," he said,

"Very observant there Malfoy," Fred called in a mocking tone.

"It's like no one else in the hall had been able to work that much out," George added. Draco flushed at their comments.

"Potter's been sent a broomstick, Professor," said Malfoy quickly.

"Snitch," was muttered around the hall.

"He can't be a snitch. He can't even find one," Harry said, casing chuckles from those around him who had heard.

"And it's really thanks to Malfoy here that I've got it," he added.

Many people around the hall burst out laughing at that.

"That is something your mum would have said," Remus said between his laughter.

"Well, it's true," Harry chortled as they reached the top of the marble staircase, "If he hadn't stolen Neville's Remembrall I wouldn't be on the team…"

"Thank you, Malfoy," many of the Gryffindors called, with the Quidditch team being the loudest. The Slytherins scowled at the reminder, with many from other houses frowning and muttering, annoyed; no one could beat him when he was in the air, it gave Gryffindor such an advantage without even taking into account the rest of the team.

He kept wandering up to the dormitory where his new broomstick was lying under his bed, or straying off to the Quidditch field where he'd be learning to play that night.

"It would have been a much more productive day if I had gotten a note about practice at breakfast and had the broom delivered to my dorm after classes," Harry said thoughtfully.

Sleek and shiny, with a mahogany handle, it had a long tail of neat, straight twigs and Nimbus Two Thousand written in gold near the top.

"It looked amazing," Ron said, thinking back.

"It was wonderful," Harry agreed dreamily. He had loved his broom before it was destroyed.

"Boys," Hermione muttered, shaking her head as she watched her boys fondly.

Hundreds of seats were raised in stands around the field so that the spectators were high enough to see what was going on.

"And it's still not high enough to see what Harry does half of the time," Ron complained. Harry had two approaches to matches. He either stayed up high searching for the snitch, meaning it was almost impossible to see him, or he played as an offensive seeker, breaking up chaser plays and confusing the other team while searching for the snitch. Hermione shuddered at the thought of the stands being any higher; she really didn't like heights.

They reminded Harry of the little plastic sticks Muggle children blew bubbles through, except that they were fifty feet high.

"They do look like that, don't they?" Tonks said.

Too eager to fly again to wait for Wood, Harry mounted his broomstick and kicked off from the ground.

"Of course," Ginny said. She loved being in the air and completely understood his eagerness to fly.

The Nimbus Two Thousand turned wherever he wanted at his lightest touch.

"It really did make the school brooms seem clunky and unresponsive in comparison."

He was carrying a large wooden crate under his arm.

"Why did he have the crate?" Remus asked.

"He knew that I'd never seen a game of Quidditch, so wanted me to be able to see which ball was which and what he was talking about," Harry said.

"Very nice," said Wood, his eyes glinting.

The Gryffindor team all shuddered at that. When Oliver's eyes glinted, it didn't mean good things for them.

I'm just going to teach you the rules this evening, then you'll be joining team practice three times a week."

"The good old days," Alicia said.

"Those were the days," Katie sighed.

"What do you mean?" Lavender asked.

"When we only had practice three times a week," Angelina said.

"Did that change?" Dean asked.

"Oh, he only became more fanatic," George said.

"Made us have five practices a week," Fred said.

"Sometimes he got us up before the sun was even up," Harry added. Many looked at the team in concern, wondering how they managed to keep up with school work around so many practices, and awe, now understanding why they were so good.

Three of them are called Chasers."

"Best chasers ever," Harry called out, Fred and George calling out their agreement, causing the three girls to blush slightly.

Never mind," said Harry quickly.

"Good idea. He doesn't need another sport to obsess over."

"Now, there's another player on each side who's called the Keeper — I'm Keeper for Gryffindor.

"Oliver was the best," Angelina said.

"I'll show you now," said Wood.

"Excuse me, he showed you?" Minerva asked. She hadn't known that, or how crazy Oliver had apparently been about Quidditch; from what she was hearing, maybe making him captain was a mistake.

"I was fine," Harry said with a shrug. Ron and Hermione shot him unimpressed looks.

"You could be standing there, bleeding out, and you would still say you're fine," Ron deadpanned. Harry just grinned sheepishly and shrugged.

He handed Harry a small club, a bit like a short baseball bat.

"At least he gave you a bat," Mrs Weasley said, having not liked the idea of releasing a bludger on a first year who was unable to defend himself from it.

Harry swung at it with the bat to stop it from breaking his nose, and sent it zigzagging away into the air — it zoomed around their heads and then shot at Wood, who dived on top of it and managed to pin it to the ground.

"That'll leave a bruise," the twins said together. They would know; most of their bruises from practice came from trying to restrain the bludgers at the end of practice, since there was only one spell that would freeze a bludger and Quidditch referees were oath-bound to not tell anyone what it was.

"The Bludgers rocket around, trying to knock players off their brooms.

"Some harder than others," the trio muttered together, all of them thinking back to their second year and the bludger Dobby had cursed to only target Harry. Remus heard what they said and sent them a concerned look before sighing.

"I really don't want to know."

That's why you have two Beaters on each team — the Weasley twins are ours —

"Our two amazing beaters," Katie called.

"Thank you."

"We try."

"Er — have the Bludgers ever killed anyone?" Harry asked, hoping he sounded offhand.

"No one ever manages to sound offhand with that question," Lee said.

We've had a couple of broken jaws

"And many other injuries," Madame Pomphrey said. Half of the injuries she dealt with during the year were Quidditch related, whether from practice, matches, or pick-up games, or from people hexing the players before a match.

And you don't have to worry about the Quaffle or the Bludgers —"

"The only reason the seeker has to pay attention to the match is to dodge bludgers and the score," Charlie agreed.

"— unless they crack my head open."

"True. You would have to worry about them then," Fred agreed.

"But you don't have to worry about that. You're brilliant at dodging," George agreed, clearly remembering how he had kept away from the rogue bludger.

"Don't worry, the Weasleys are more than a match for the Bludgers — I mean, they're like a pair of human Bludgers themselves."

"Oh Oliver, you're making us blush," the twins said together amongst laughter around the hall.

It's the Seeker's job to catch it.

"Unless you play offensive. Then there's a lot more to do," Harry said with a small smile. He loved playing as an offensive seeker, the looks on the other team's faces when he shot past them was quite funny, especially since he only played offensive half the time, so they never knew which approach he was going to take; sometimes, he switched his play strategy during the match, depending on how the other team were going.

"Yeah, but barely anyone does that. It's easy enough to target the seeker and for a seeker to foul when they're just looking for the snitch," Charlie said, only to catch sight of Harry's expression.

"But it's so fun to see their faces when I disrupt their plays," Harry said, grinning. Charlie just shook his head; of course, Harry Potter played as an offensive seeker.

He understood what he had to do all right, it was doing it that was going to be the problem.

Many people throughout the hall looked at him in disbelief.

"If you have a problem, then where does that leave the rest of us?" Rodger Davies asked. Harry flushed and didn't reply.

He pulled a bag of ordinary golf balls out of his pocket and a few minutes later, he and Harry were up in the air, Wood throwing the golf balls as hard as he could in every direction for Harry to catch.

"Where did he get golf balls?" Collin asked curiously.

"The seeker before me, Harper, was terrible but was the best at tryouts. The captain, Cooper, was muggle-born and wrote home for his parents to send golf balls so they didn't keep losing the snitch. Cooper just threw them until Harper was able to spot small balls flying through the air and catch them all," Charlie explained.

"I'm not sure if it was Oliver or if they were already like that, but the golf balls were painted gold as well, to mimic what the snitch would look like," Harry added.

Harry didn't miss a single one, and Wood was delighted.

"Of course, he was," the Gryffindor team said fondly, thinking back to their old captain.

"That Quidditch Cup'll have our name on it this year," said Wood happily as they trudged back up to the castle.

"He jinxed it," Harry said, shifting slightly, feeling guilty. His movement was caught by Fred and George.

"It wasn't your fault Harry," Fred said.

"We told you that then and we'll tell you that now," George added.

"But if I wasn't in the hospital wing," Harry said.

"It is not your fault that you were in there," Katie spoke up; the whole team had worked for the first week of the next year to convince him it hadn't been his fault that they lost.

"If anything, it was Oliver's fault for not having a reserve seeker like we had reserves for all the other players," Angelina added.

"And even then, neither you nor Oliver could do anything about the fact that no one in the house wanted to play seeker," Alicia agreed.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you turn out better than Charlie Weasley, and he could have played for England if he hadn't gone off chasing dragons."

"Have you considered playing professionally?" Bill asked. Harry shrugged.

"I've considered it. But with everything going on, it wouldn't be safe, for me, my team, or the crowd, if I played professionally." He had considered it a lot for the past two years after seeing the World Cup, but with Voldemort coming back, it would just be too risky for his whereabout to be advertised.

Even better, Professor Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they'd seen him make Neville's toad zoom around the classroom.

"That was a fun lesson," Dean said.

Harry's partner was Seamus Finnigan (which was a relief, because Neville had been trying to catch his eye).

"It was nothing against you Neville, you just tended to be very clumsy and accident prone in our first year. And you lacked confidence," Harry assured the boy.

"And you're heaps better now, in both aspects," Hermione agreed.

"Although, I think you would have been safer with Neville for that lesson, mate," Ron added, causing Seamus to scowl playfully; it wasn't his fault that he somehow managed to set so many things on fire or blow them up.

It was hard to tell whether Ron or Hermione was angrier about this.

"I've been wanting to ask for a while, but how did you three become friends. And such close friends at that?" Remus asked.

"There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other," Hermione said, echoing something Ron had pointed out a few days after the troll incident.

"And we've been through many of those things," Ron agreed. Remus looked like he wasn't sure what to say to that, and he was quite unsure if he wanted to ask.

"We become friends at the end of this chapter," Harry added, getting a nod of thanks and understanding from Remus.

And saying the magic words properly is very important, too — never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

"That doesn't work," the twins and Lee said while Remus nodded in agreement.

"Should I ask how you know that?" Hermione asked, even though she could probably guess.

"We tried it," Lee replied with a shrug.

"Sirius tested it out after James dared him to," Remus added with a shrug.

Seamus got so impatient that he prodded it with his wand and set fire to it — Harry had to put it out with his hat.

"Does he set things on fire in class often?" Ginny asked. She knew how often things set on fire in the common room due to Seamus, which was at least twice a month, more during the holidays, but was wondering how bad it was in class.

"About as much as he does in the common room," Ron said with a half-shrug.

"He's very attractive for Dollywigs, which cause people to be much more prone to causing fires," Luna said, staring unblinkingly at Seamus, causing Seamus to shift uncomfortably under the stare.

"You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled.

"Ooh, you never challenge a girl. Especially when said girl is a bookworm," Tonks said.

"I know that now," Ron grumbled.

"It's no wonder no one can stand her," he said to Harry as they pushed their way into the crowded corridor, "she's a nightmare, honestly."

"Ronald!" Mrs Weasley yelled.

"I was eleven. Plus, I already apologised," Ron exclaimed, holding his hands up in surrender.

"She must've noticed she's got no friends."

"You heard that too, didn't you?" Harry asked quietly, getting a small nod in reply.

Hermione didn't turn up for the next class and wasn't seen all afternoon.

"And none of the teachers questioned it?" Mr Weasley asked.

Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, "Troll — in the dungeons — thought you ought to know."

"There was a troll! In the castle!" Mrs Weasley exclaimed.

"Yeah," the trio replied slowly.

"The teachers dealt with quickly, I assume," Mr Weasley said, causing a few of the teachers to shift.

"It was dealt with," Minerva replied slowly.

"Maybe Peeves let it in for a Halloween joke."

"Not his style," Remus denied.

"Oh, all right," he snapped. "But Percy'd better not see us."

"Why didn't you get a teacher?" Bill asked, rubbing his temples.

"They were all already out of the hall," Ron said.

"And a Prefect?" Charlie asked, concerned about what would have happened to his brother and his friends if they had encountered the troll.

"They were all busy with everyone else," Harry said.

Harry sniffed and a foul stench reached his nostrils, a mixture of old socks and the kind of public toilet no one seems to clean.

"Oh no," Charlie said, knowing that that was exactly what a troll was said to smell like.

It was holding a huge wooden club, which dragged along the floor because its arms were so long.

"You ran into the troll!" Mrs Weasley exclaimed. Ron exchanged a quick glance with Harry and Hermione before he handed her a calming draught; they had been planning to hand them out when they started fighting the troll, but now was as good a time as any. Mrs Weasley gratefully took the potion, calming down slightly as the potion entered her system.

"The keys in the lock," Harry muttered. "We could lock it in."

Hermione glared at the two boys but didn't say anything about them locking the troll in the bathroom with her, since she already knew it had happened; they had discussed the incident in great detail in the days after the event, going over exactly what had happened and why they did what they did.

"Hermione!" they said together.

"Oh Merlin," Tonks said, paling.

Harry pulled the door open and they ran inside.

The trio quickly handed out calming draughts to the rest of their group, knowing they would need them very soon.

Hermione Granger was shrinking against the wall opposite, looking as if she was about to faint.

"Not the time to freeze up," Tonks said in horror, terrified about what could have happened to the trio who were sharing a couch not even ten metres away.

"Hermione's never been good thinking on her feet – that's Harry's speciality – but she's gotten better about not freezing up," Ron said, even though most people were too focused on the story to register that his statement meant they had been in many more life-threatening situations; how else would he know that.

Harry then did something that was both very brave and very stupid: He took a great running jump and managed to fasten his arms around the troll's neck from behind.

Those who had been in the multi house group all turned to look at Lee in shock, who had gone very pale, but were too wrapped up in the story to actually say anything.

Howling with pain, the troll twisted and flailed its club, with Harry clinging on for dear life;

Harry grimaced slightly at the feeling of being flung around like he had been when he clung to the Trolls back.

He was shaking and out of breath.

The Harry in the hall was trying desperately trying to hide the fact that he was also shaking and trying to catch his breath.

He wiped it on the troll's trousers.

Fred seemed to have recovered enough to pull out the list that they had made during the first break and used the quill that George passed him to put a large tick next to Lee's name and his suggestion of them wrestling a troll.

Quirrell took one look at the troll, let out a faint whimper, and sat quickly down on a toilet, clutching his heart.

"How did he even become the Defence Professor?" Moody demanded.

"Coward," the trio muttered before Hermione titled her head slightly in thought.

"How did none of the teachers question it considering what his contribution was?" she asked quietly. Both boys looked thoughtful for a moment before shrugging; they had no clue.

"Well — in that case…" said Professor McGonagall, staring at the three of them, "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?"

No one said anything about Hermine lying to a teacher, even though many of them were shocked that she had, everyone too shocked about what they had just heard the trio did when they were in first year.

"Good of her to get us out of trouble like that," Ron admitted. "Mind you, we did save her."

"She wouldn't have needed saving if you hadn't been mean and made her hide there," Ginny said.

But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend.

"Harry, can you please make friends the normal way?" Remus asked, hand clutched to his chest. Harry shrugged.

"Where's the fun in that? Normal's boring." And this was coming from the person who had always wanted to just be normal. That had been thrown out of the window after first year, when he realised that he would never have a normal life, even if every now and then he still wished he could just be another teenager.

There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.

"Hey Lee, your prediction was right," George said into the silent hall.

"Those were predictions of what we weren't going to read about," Alicia exclaimed, slightly hysterically due to the stress of the chapter.

"What predictions?" Harry asked wearily, not knowing what to expect when the twins were involved.

"During the first break we were discussing things and ended up talking about things we didn't think would come up in the books, even with the luck you three have and the things you've done," Tonks said.

"What type of things?" Ron asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Wrestle a troll, fight Acromantula, meet a giant, see a dragon hatch, fly on a dragon," Fred began, reading off their list.

"Ride a centaur, break into the Ministry, break into Gringotts, ridicule Malfoy Sn, control or scare Peeves," George continued.

"Stop Rita Skeeter from writing lies, learn the identities of the Marauders, get into another house common room, cast a corporeal Patronus," Fred said.

"Teach people how to cast a Patronus, time travel, go into the Chamber of Secrets, find Slytherin's locket, find Hufflepuff's cup," George said.

"Find Gryffindor's sword, find Ravenclaw's lost diadem, find out who the Grey Lady is, and find out why the Bloody Baron is covered in blood," Fred finished. The trio were all discretely making a mental note of all the things on the list that they had already done, while Ron was counting the number of things that they had already done on his fingers out of sight of everyone.

Should we tell them? Harry asked.

Let them find out as we read, Hermione suggested.

How many have we actually done? I lost count, Harry said.

Thirteen overall, Ron replied.

Thirteen out of twenty-three. That's actually impressive, considering they probably thought all of those things were impossible or extremely unlikely, Hermione said. Everyone in the hall was watching the trio communicate, and all of them were very lost about what they were saying, or how they were communicating. Remus finally asked what everyone was wondering.

"What?" the trio all turned and gave identical smirks.

"You'll see," they replied together. Remus sighed.

"How many have you done?" he asked in a resigned tone. Harry raised an eyebrow and the other two nodded.

"More than you would think," Harry replied.

"And how many is that?" Mrs Weasley asked.

"More than seven."

"Which ones?" Ginny asked curiously, already knowing about three of them; the troll, since they'd just read about it, the Chamber, since he rescued her from it, and the Patronus, since that was what he got a warning about during the summer.

"You'll see," Harry replied with a smirk. Remus sighed.

"Let's just keep reading so we can find out," he said, gaining murmurs of agreement from most of the hall, which prompted Filius to cast the charm on the book again.