As September wore on, Harry was quite glad he was only doing one other club than Quidditch – juggling things around was quite tricky as it was, and his reading time was suffering. Some other people were doing several clubs, which sounded like the sort of thing Harry could have done in first-year but he had trouble seeing how he could manage it this year with Quidditch.

Some of the clubs were things Harry didn't think he was ready for even if he'd had the free time, like Charms club or the Arithmancy Society, but then there was a newly-started music club which Ron had joined – apparently that was the work of June Forrester – and a cooking club which sounded like it would be really nice to be involved in.

Even if it was just as the taste-tester, though Harry was sure they had enough of those.

But, for all that, the Quidditch team was full of camaraderie and enthusiasm. Harry was often asked to help out in providing them a challenge, from an opposing Chaser for the three Gryffindor chasers to practice tackling, to a Bludger target (which was admittedly something only he could really do safely), to even being the opposing Keeper as they refined their whole-pitch formations.

Oliver was torn between gloating over Harry's ability to get the Snitch and worry over the Slytherin team – all of whom were equipped with high-level Nimbus brooms more modern than anything Gryffindor had. It seemed a little like an unfair advantage, but Harry wasn't really sure how the rules worked for that because Quidditch had been around for hundreds of years before brooms were even really sold.

It wasn't as if you could really buy better performance in a Muggle game like Football – or, at least, you could buy better players, but you couldn't buy boots that made you run twice as fast.

As Harry propped up his book and got ready for breakfast on the third Thursday of the month, Neville sat down next to him.

"Did you hear about what happened last night?" he asked.

"...not really?" Harry replied. "Did something bad happen?"

"Well, apparently someone set off some fireworks during the first-year Astronomy class," Neville explained. "All sorts of different colours – Percy said he was going to tell Fred and George off for it, but they're saying it wasn't them this time."

Harry thought about that.

"Actually, I wonder why there's only those two playing pranks," he said. "They're good, but they're only halfway through learning magic – there's got to be some seventh years who can do better than them."

"That is a good point," Neville agreed. "And, come to think of it, fireworks are one of those things you can just buy in a joke shop. Doctor Filibuster, I think?"

"I hope they're less dangerous than Muggle fireworks," Harry mused, then took a bite of his toast. He chewed thoughtfully before swallowing, and went on. "They're always full of warnings about keeping away from children and pets. They do smell kind of nice, though – one fell in the garden back at home, and it was pretty tasty as well. Kind of a salty taste."

Neville looked at him, then shook his head.

Colin gave Harry a bit more details over lunch. Apparently the fireworks had hissed off into the sky for almost an hour, each one sending out a burst of multicoloured sparks, but there'd been at least five minutes between them and they'd always been just as Professor Sinistra had told them all that they were about to move on to looking at something else.

It actually sounded like there'd been surprisingly little disruption, given that it was a series of fireworks exploding during an astronomy lesson at night. Harry was sort of impressed with himself that he'd slept through it, really, though apparently almost everyone had.

"Hope that doesn't happen in our Astronomy lesson," Ron said, cutting himself a slice of ham and a big hunk of cheese. "We're doing epicycles and stuff tonight. I kind of want to know why people thought they were a thing."

He snagged two thick slices of bread, buttered them, and put the ham and cheese inside – giving him a plus-sized cheese and ham sandwich.

"Isn't it just because we didn't know that the sun was the centre of the solar system?" Hermione asked. "It's an optical illusion."

"Yeah, but I want to know why people didn't know," Ron replied, and pointed his wand at his sandwich. "Hyacinthum inflammare."

Bright lavender flames sprang up all around his meal, and half the Great Hall turned to look.

Ron noticed the attention. "What? Is something wrong?"

"Oh, brother, my bother," Fred began.

"Why have you set your food on fire?" George continued.

"Is this some kind of French thing?" Fred said.

"Would it be a problem if it was?" Hermione asked.

"We're British," Fred pointed out. (Or possibly it was George. Harry was just guessing.)

"My brother's right," George nodded. "Well, my handsome brother is right."

"You mean me, then?" Ron asked.

"No, not at all," Fred informed his youngest brother. "He means me."

"And we're sort of not getting to the point," George said. "Why have you set your meal on fire?"

"It's bluebell flames," Ron replied. "They're not actually dangerous, and the fire doesn't spread."

He pointed his wand. "Finite."

The flames vanished, and Ron checked for a moment to be sure they were really gone before picking up the sandwich and taking a bite.

He chewed for a few seconds, just about all eyes on him, then swallowed.

"Delicious," he pronounced. "It melted the cheese, just like I expected."

"Oh, right," Dean realized. "I thought you'd gone a bit mental, to be honest."

"Is that the right way to say it?" Harry asked, distracted. "Wouldn't it be eccentric? Or bonkers?"

"With the best will in the world, I don't think we're rich enough to be eccentric," Fred admitted.

"We are mad, though," George frowned. "As in mad science."

"Mad magic, not mad science," Fred corrected. "Or perhaps Madic?"

George contemplated his twin for several seconds, then thwacked him with a rolled-up Quibbler.

"That was bad," he said. "And you should feel bad."

Harry noticed over the next couple of weeks that Nora had started watching as they did Quidditch practice.

Fortunately, she mostly seemed interested in watching, and there didn't seem to be any danger of her taking part – it just looked like she liked watching, and unlike Harry didn't seem inclined to go chasing after the Snitch the moment she saw it.

It was actually kind of nice to know she was interested.

Then, after one practice session, she came flying over as Harry left the pitch and landed in front of him.

"You..." she began, then paused and tilted her head.

"What is it?" Harry asked, and Nora shook her head in reaction.

"Not what," she denied, and was silent for several seconds – Harry could almost hear the gears turning as she tried to express what she was thinking.

Eventually, she tried something. "Back hurt?"

"No, I'm fine," Harry replied.

Nora accepted that, and took off again. Instead of flying towards either Hagrid's hut or to the castle, though, she headed on a bit of an angle – something which interested Harry, so he took off and followed her.

Harry had known there was a tree on the Hogwarts grounds that would bludgeon anything that got nearby – he'd wondered if maybe it was an Ent, but it was just a Whomping Willow – but he had to admit that he'd never thought of doing that with it.

Nora stretched like a cat next to the trunk, forepaws digging into the ground to stabilize her, and the branches of the mobile tree hammered down on her with a series of thwacks and thumps that sounded quite painful. They obviously weren't, though, and after she finished stretching the Norwegian Ridgeback lay down where the tree could reach her and continue to batter her all over.

Banking around well outside the tree's attack range, Harry alighted.

"Is that what you were asking about?" he said.

Nora brightened, lifting her head and twisting to look at him. "Hello! Back hurt?"

"No, I'm just curious," Harry explained.

Deciding that this would be a good thing to go into his next letter to Charlie Weasley, he checked the time and sat down to see how much longer Nora would spend being hit very hard with the branches of a mobile tree.

Several minutes later, Nora got up again. Her tail flicked out, slapping the side of the tree, and to Harry's surprise the Willow immediately froze – branches stopped in mid-swing.

"Am hungry now," she announced, and took off to fly over to Hagrid's hut.

As she left, Harry wondered if Neville knew that you could turn off a Whomping Willow by touching part of the trunk.

He'd know once Harry told him, obviously, but what he wasn't sure about was whether Neville already knew.

On the first day of October (which was a Thursday), the Quibbler arrived at breakfast.

The cover was a drawing of Hogwarts castle, with a cat looking out the window, and the story it advertised was one called 'Humans At Hogwarts'.

Curious, Harry opened it up, and read a long article in which the author raised the chilling but sadly feasible possibility that Hogwarts had just admitted their first human student.

Harry got two paragraphs past that before stopping and re-reading it, just in case he'd missed something, but no – the Quibbler article suggested that everybody at Hogwarts wasn't human.

It was a thoroughly odd article, and Harry seriously considered seeing if it made more sense to read it upside down. It wasn't the only strange article, either – another one reported that the Andorran Ministry of Magic had surprisingly turned out to be just one man, because the population of the little country was under 80,000 and so there weren't many wizards there.

That one sounded quite likely, to Harry, but he did wonder why it had taken so long to notice.

Then there was a two-page interview with an anonymous sphinx who was a Ravenclaw first year. Harry was fairly sure he could guess who that was, but the interview was very interesting anyway – for example, Tanisis (or Sphinxess, as the interview called her) said that her mother had become friends with her father because of a shared passion for running, before pointing out that sphinxes were well known for the riddle thing but that didn't mean that was the only thing they were about.

Harry did wonder who the interviewer was, though.

"I wonder if wizards do any trick or treating?" Dean asked, when they were in the middle of doing History of Magic homework one evening. "I know it's still a few weeks before Halloween, but it seems like the kind of thing that they'd either not do any of at all or that they'd do loads of because they get to go outside looking like themselves."

"I don't think that's the technical term," Hermione sniffed.

"What?" Harry asked. "I never got to go trick or treating, but I've heard about it. It's definitely what it's called."

"That's not the one I mean," Hermione explained. "I mean 'they'. Dean, you're a wizard as well."

"Oh, yeah, but I was talking about wizard culture," Dean clarified. "And – hold on. You knew that, didn't you?"

Hermione explained that of course she did, she was just trying out this new thing called deadpan.

"Why don't we just ask Ron and Neville?" Harry suggested. "They grew up in wizard culture."

"Of course we do trick or treating," Ron agreed. "We only did it for a few years and only around Ottery St. Catchpole, but it was great fun. I think Ginny went with her friend, that Ravenclaw first year… Luna, that's right. I always dressed as a wizard, though a really old fashioned wizard and mum didn't let me take one of our brooms."

"That's neat," Dean said. "What about you, Nev?"

Neville looked a bit embarrassed. "Well… Gran didn't like me doing that. She said it was disrespectful to… actually, to your mum and dad, Harry."

"I don't mind," Harry replied. "It's kind of… it wouldn't be right if people couldn't have fun."

"I'm letting you tell Gran that," Neville said, and Harry snorted.

"I wonder if-" Dean began, then laughter broke out all around the common room.

Harry looked up, confused, and saw Fred and George coming in through the portrait hole.

Both of them had bright green hair.

"What in Merlin's name happened to you?" Percy asked. "Your hair's green!"

As he said it, both twins' hair turned yellow.

"Shut up, Perce," Fred grumbled, or possibly George grumbled. "Just tell us you can remove this spell."

"We can't," George agreed, or possibly Fred agreed. "It's got one of those fancy fixing effects on."

"The ones that mean you can't just finite," Fred said.

"It's very annoying."

Percy raised his wand. "Egritudo."

There was no change.

"Has that fixed my hair?" George asked, and the colour changed to purple.

"It's not fixed your hair," Fred answered.

This time it went blue.

"I'm casting a spell to see what's going on," Percy explained, following his brothers as they went over to a corner – the one not far from where Harry and his friends were. "It looks like this was a potion, actually."

"Of course," Fred realized. "We should have known those cookies were suspicious."

"In our defence, George," George said, "they were in the kitchen."

"I think we've been pranked, by Jove," Fred concurred. "Anyone got a Bezoar?"

"It doesn't count as a poison," Percy told them. "So you'll just have to wait. It'll probably wear off overnight."

"Oh, come on, Perce," George groaned. "Can't you come up with some kind of spell to fix this?"

"Probably," Percy replied. "But I don't feel like it. Maybe I will in the morning."

"This is some kind of punishment, isn't it?" Fred asked.

"Mostly just a reminder not to eat random food," Percy told them. "What if you'd got something that they were making for Harry?"

"Good point," George conceded.

"Smugly made," Fred agreed.

"That actually reminds me of the sort of thing Mr. Lupin said the Marauders used to do," Harry said. "Does it really change colour every time someone says 'hair'?"

Both twins' hair changed to chartreuse, but neither of them noticed.

"Who's Mr. Lupin?" Fred asked.

"Where did you hear about the Marauders?" George added.

Harry blinked. "Huh? I met him last year, because of a letter he sent into the Daily Prophet. He said that he and my dad were friends at school, and they were part of a group of students called the Marauders who did pranks and stuff."

Fred and George discussed something in very fast whispers. It looked like they were saying the word 'hair' a lot, because in the space of about thirty increasingly awkward seconds their hair changed to midnight blue, chocolate, silver, cornflower blue, black, salmon, olive and finally ended up a deep violet.

"Okay, we need to talk about this," Fred said. "Come on, Harry."

"We're going to find a classroom," George agreed. "Hey, Perce, it's not curfew yet is it?"

"No, though I suspect that wouldn't stop you," Percy muttered.

A few minutes later, Fred and George had dragged Harry down to a sixth-floor classroom that looked like it had once been a Transfiguration class.

"All right," George began. "So let's talk about this."

"Who's this Mr. Lupin?" Fred added. "And who did he say the Marauders were?"

Harry frowned, thinking back to the conversation. "Well… I think he's the only Marauder who's really left. He said that there were four of them. He was one, and then there was Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black and my dad."

"Ouch," George winced.

"Yeah, we didn't expect that," Fred agreed.

After a pause which was kind of awkward, George coughed.

"So did he say which one he was?"

"Which one?" Harry repeated. "Well… there's some stuff I promised not to share unless it was really important, but I guess the bit that doesn't really matter as much is that my Dad was an animagus – a stag."

Fred and George exchanged looks.

"That's good enough for me," George said.

"That's good enough for you?" Fred repeated. "I was going to say that!"

"That means you have to say something else, doesn't it?" George asked. "I think that's how it works."

"I don't," Fred countered. "That's good enough for me, Harry."

Harry tried not to snigger.

"The reason we ask," George went on, deciding to be the one who got on to the next bit, "is that we've heard the name Marauder before."

Fred took a folded up parchment from his pocket – it looked like it was about A-3 in size – and put it on the nearest desk. He put the tip of his wand on it, and cleared his throat.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he announced.

Lines spread out on the parchment from the tip of Fred's wand, forming into dots and lines and eventually an entire map – a map of the whole castle, with little moving (or stationary) dots all over it and tiny writing next to them. There were a lot of secret passages on there as well, most of them ones Harry had never seen before woven through the castle like spaghetti, and he wondered how long Fred and George had had this.

At the top, it announced that

Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs

Puvreyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers

are proud to present

THE MARAUDERS MAP

Harry was quite proud of how quickly he worked out who was who – which, he thought, was probably because of all the Redwall he'd read.

"I think Moony must be Mr. Lupin," he said. "Wormtail is Peter Pettigrew, Padfoot is Sirius Black and Prongs is my dad."

"That's why it was good enough for us," Fred explained. "We know we hadn't told you about the Map, so you wouldn't know about something that would fit closely enough with Prongs."

Harry wondered what animal Mr. Lupin could turn into, to be Moony, then after a moment he realized what it probably was.

Poor Mr. Lupin. Being a werewolf was a lot less nice than being someone like Belgarion.

"So does that mean that Mr. Lupin and the others were animagi as well?" Fred asked.

"You know what that means, George?" George said.

"Yes, I do!" Fred agreed. "But where are we going to get the fur dye?"

"...what?" George asked, completely baffled.

"Oh, I thought you were doing that joke about having a strange idea," Fred explained. "Yes. Animagus. Right."

"I wonder if Mr. Lupin can help," Harry said, half to himself.

He picked up the map, looking at it and wondering how his dad and the other Marauders had made it. It couldn't be easy to do this sort of thing, to make a magical map of Hogwarts – making a normal map of Hogwarts was probably hard enough with all the odd passages! - and it looked an awful lot like those dots were actually people.

There was tiny writing next to each one, though Harry had to look quite closely to see them because the whole castle and all the floors and towers – as well as the grounds were crammed onto what was a large but not huge sheet of parchment.

"How do you two read it?" he asked. "This is really tiny."

"Oh, you get used to it," Fred said.

"But there is a neat trick," George added.

He placed his wand on the map again, the tip resting on the sixth-floor classroom they were in, and made a sweeping upwards motion. The lines on the map got larger, some of it moving off the edge, and the sixth-floor map expanded until it was much easier to read.

"There's ways to make it do other things, too," George went on, dragging his wand down again to make the map change the scale the other way. "If you get close to a secret passage, it shows you how to open it – that's really useful."

"So that's how you know most of the secret passages in the school?" Harry asked.

"Most of the secret passages?" Fred said, offended.

"We know all the secret passages," George agreed.

"I certainly can't think of any we don't know," Fred nodded.

"So!" George went on. "We might want to look at that map again in future, but really you should have it."

"Your dad helped make it," Fred agreed. "And since one of the other people who helped make it is dead, and another of them is evil, that means it's you or Mr. Moony."

"Which makes you the heir," George concluded, the hair of both twins going white.

Harry blinked, not expecting that. "Well… thanks, guys!"

He looked at the map. "I'm not really sure what I'll use it for, though..."

"Why not cause a bit of trouble?" George asked. "Or at least make sure you don't get in trouble when you have to go out after curfew?"

Harry wasn't sure he'd ever have to do that, but it was something that his dad had done.

Right now, though, the thing that was occupying more of his attention was the reminder that the Marauders had been animagi (or, in one case, something else).

What would his friends end up if they became Animagi?

And could you become an Animagus while at school legally?

Mr. Lupin was quite glad to hear that Harry had run across the Marauders' Map, as he'd always wondered what had become of it after the caretaker Mr. Filch had confiscated it (apparently on general principle).

His letter also outlined the whole process for becoming an Animagus, but warned that it was extremely risky and that he thought it would be a very bad idea for Harry's friends to do it in second-year – along with a caution that the Weasley Twins (whose hair was now back to normal) would be better off waiting until their fifth year.

Harry showed that much to Ron, Hermione, Dean and Neville, who were all interested in the idea of becoming Animagi, but he kept the postscript to the letter to himself.

I wondered if you would work out my problem. Thank you for promising to keep it secret.

-Moony.

Harry did wonder what his Marauder name would be, though. It was normally what you were that wasn't human, so did that mean he'd be Smaug?

Probably not. It didn't sound silly enough.

Maybe Fred and George had hoped that giving Harry the Marauders' Map would make it so he'd spend time sneaking around and pulling pranks, but even if he'd been inclined to it felt like he wouldn't have had the time.

On top of his classwork, and homework – and Quidditch to boot – Harry also had to keep up with the books for the book club, and there was also the sort-of-hobby he'd developed of taking notes on what Nora was saying and doing. Nobody else spoke Dragonish, though Hagrid was doing his level best to at least pick up a few words, and what little information he could send off to Charlie Weasley was always greatly appreciated.

Hermione was helping out as well, torn between lamenting that this couldn't be considered a Care of Magical Creatures side project because they weren't doing the subject this year and fascinated by everything Harry could mention. She was even trying to sort something out with the British Dragon Reserve, to see if Harry could visit them and see if adult dragons were more eloquent than Nora was, but apparently she was having a lot of trouble working out how to schedule it.

There was also no sign of Dobby, which Harry could only view as positive – maybe the little house-elf had given up.

Certainly whatever plot Dobby was trying to keep him safe from hadn't turned up yet.

Halloween was on a Saturday, and that meant that Harry's morning was occupied once more by Quidditch practice. The weather was pretty bad, with the rain coming down in sheets, and after ten minutes Harry took his glasses off and put them in his robe pocket just so he wouldn't have drops of water in the way of his vision.

Practising in bad weather made it much harder for Harry to actually fly the way he was used to. Unlike everyone else, he had wings – which meant that he was blown a little off course by the force of a wind squall – and he had to concentrate hard to try and see the wind coming, or to adjust when he was blown off course anyway.

When it was his turn to team up with Cormac and be an attacking player for the whole rest of the Gryffindor team to defend against, it was trickier still – passing the Quaffle wasn't something he was used to, and the way the ball floated through the air which normally made it so a Chaser could catch it easily was a liability in bad weather. It was at least easy to see, bright red as it was, but more than once Harry ended up fumbling the catch anyway.

The combination meant he actually crashed at least twice, splattering mud all over his robes and scales, and when Oliver reluctantly called practice off Harry wanted nothing more than to have a wash.

At least he hadn't taken a book with him to the training session.

"Why are there no showers down near the castle entrance?" he asked Fred, as they climbed up the hill on which Hogwarts stood – Harry's wings out to give the others as much shelter from the rain as he could. "It seems like with Herbology, and Quidditch, and probably Care of Magical Creatures as well, half the reason why people would need a shower is outdoors."

"I think it's because plumbing hadn't been invented when the castle was built," George replied, from under Harry's other wing.

"I'm… not sure that makes sense?" Harry asked. "If the problem is that they hadn't invented plumbing, then they could just have installed the showers wherever they wanted, couldn't they?"

"Ah, that's your mistake," Fred told Harry. "That sounds logical."

"But as your friend Hermione has been so kind as to tell us," George went on. "Wizards don't have much time for logic."

"I don't have much time for it myself," Fred agreed. "I mean, look how much it helps!"

"Wait, hold on, guys," Alicia asked.

"She speaks!" Fred announced. "I wondered why you were being so quiet!"

"I'm wondering why all our teammates were being so quiet," George agreed. "Is there something wrong with joining in with a conversation?"

"We don't want to encourage you, that's what," Cormac contributed. "Plus, we want to get to having a shower."

"I'm curious, though," Alicia went on. "Didn't you just admit that logic helps? So why don't you use it?"

"Because that would be the logical thing to do," George explained.

Harry shook his head, smiling, and then they were inside the castle entrance.

Electing not to shake himself off the way he'd seen Nora do, Harry wiped his paws – leaving more than a little mud on the mat. Oliver cast a spell to Vanish the mud once everyone else had done the same, and they headed up to the nearest set of bathrooms – or, for Alicia, Katie and Angelina, the second nearest set of appropriate bathrooms, because the closest girl's bathroom was haunted and nobody wanted to be haunted during a shower.

Properly washed-up and changed out of his Quidditch armour (which Percy had Transfigured to fit a dragon; Harry wasn't sure there was much point given how durable his hide was but it was a nice thought), Harry finally got back to the corridor with the Fat Lady about half past twelve.

"Coriolanus," he said, and the Fat Lady's portrait clicked as she swung outwards. Before he went in, however, he paused – smelling something a bit odd.

"Going to be going in, dear?" the Fat Lady asked. "Don't leave me hanging, as the youth say."

"They do?" Harry replied, distracted. "I didn't know they did."

"Well, that Dean Thomas boy said it," the Fat Lady explained. "I thought I'd try and stay in touch."

Harry chuckled, then sniffed again.

It was definitely familiar, and he loped down the corridor and found a small orange vixen looking up at him in confusion.

"Hello, there," he smiled. "I think we met on the train?"

The vixen stared at him, then apparently decided he wasn't all that threatening and licked a paw.

Wondering if she was sufficiently magical to see him as a dragon instead of a human, Harry thought about how he'd read you were supposed to treat animals.

"You're very lost, aren't you?" he said. "You should really be down with your humans in the Slytherin dorm room."

The vixen tilted her head, tail wagging slightly, and Harry slowly reached out to pick her up. She consented to it, and Harry juggled her about a bit so she was held in one paw and he could use the other three to walk on.

"I'll see if one of the Prefects can take you down to your common room," he said, still trying to sound non-threatening.

Maybe he should have a quick word with the Smith twins, though. And Neville, for that matter – one pet going missing was a problem, but a fox and a toad both going missing was just asking for a tragic Owl home.

Once that was sorted out, Harry had some homework to do. Dean hadn't done it yet, so the two of them spent some of the Halloween afternoon working on the only somewhat spooky subject of Potions, though they were interrupted for a bit when Neville asked for advice on how to make sure his arms were strong enough to swing a sword.

That one was a bit of a puzzler for Harry as well, but after a bit of thought Harry suggested that he should start with moving a weight around and use heavier weights over time. It was mostly a guess, but he was fairly sure it was a good one.

It was actually kind of odd how little the books he'd read actually talked about sword fighting. Belgarion – back when he'd been just Garion – had got a sword for a present, and then just been… quite good at sword fighting. Maybe it was magic, but then it should be magic here as well.

Then again, maybe he should just suggest Neville do some training as a spare Beater. Fred and George were clearly very strong.

Potions called, though, and Harry went back to that (along with Dean, who put away the book he'd been reading while he waited). There was a foot or so left on their essay about the usefulness of tap water, salt water, groundwater and lake water as the base for a potion, and with all the looking-things-up they had to do it took quite a long time.

Putting down his ink-erasing quill, Harry sighed.

"I think that's done," he said, shutting the Potions textbook and the extra book they'd got out of the library. "And just in time, too, there's not long left until the Halloween feast starts."

"You going to dress up?" Dean asked.

"Well..." Harry began, about to say no, then shook his head. "I'm going to dress up as a dragon."

"But you are a dragon," Dean replied, sniggering.

"Yeah, it's a really good costume," Harry explained, warming to the topic. "I've been in one all this time. Really convincing, isn't it?"

He leaned closer. "Don't tell anyone, but I'm actually a dwarf."

Dean tried manfully to keep a straight face.

"You guys coming?" Ron asked. "We're heading down soon."

"Bit early, isn't it?" Dean replied, glancing at the clock.

"Do you want to be part of hundreds and hundreds of students trying to get through the corridors?" Ron said.

"I'd say I'd fly," Harry noted, looking at the window and the rain drumming against it. "But… yeah."

"Hey, take a book if you want," Ron shrugged. "Pity the Quibbler doesn't come until tomorrow. I'd kind of love to see what the Halloween edition is like."

"You could ask Luna," Ginny volunteered, looking up from The Two Towers. "Her dad's the one who runs it. I think he writes all the articles."

"You what?" Ron asked, blinking. "Some of those articles contradict each other."

"That sounds like a pretty normal tabloid to me," Hermione said, joining in the conversation. "Now, are we going down now or are we going to spend some time in the library first?"

Once the students had stopped arriving, the Great Hall was packed. There was a slightly different feel than last year, with the floating candles burning in appropriately spooky colours like green and blue; Harry wondered if it was a bit Ravenclaw or Slytherin, but he supposed that some of them were burning blood-red and others were burning deep black, so when you thought about it all four Houses were represented.

It looked like almost everyone was here. Tanisis was easy enough to spot, and June stood out almost as much, but when Harry tried looking he actually could see just about everyone he tried to find – Cedric Diggory, Draco, Marcus Flint, Penelope… even Nora was in the room, curled up on a giant cushion behind the High Table with her tail flicking slightly as she snoozed.

The only people who seemed to be missing were the Smith twins from Slytherin, and Harry wondered if that was just because they wanted to make sure their pet vixen didn't escape again.

"Attention, everyone!" Professor Dumbledore said, standing. "Before we begin the Halloween Feast, I would like to say a few words. Does anybody mind?"

After a slightly awkward pause of about ten to fifteen seconds, he nodded. "Thank you. I thought it was the right time to say something about the true meaning of Halloween."

He cleared his throat. "Boo."

With that, the feast appeared.

"I can never really tell if he's actually crazy or just acting like it," Dean said, as he sliced some Pumpkin Pie to put on his plate.

"I'm not sure it has to be just one or the other," Neville replied.

The Halloween Feast had been loud and fun last year, and this year it was just as much fun – made all the sweeter by the drumming rain on the roof, and the warmth of the Great Hall. Everyone knew that there was filthy weather going on outside and they were well out of it, and the House-Elves had outdone themselves.

Some of the odder things that made their way to the tables included Saumon a la Rothschild (which was restricted to the upperclassmen, as it contained alcohol – watching it vanish as Fred tried to cut himself some gave half the Gryffindor table the giggles) as well as breads baked with things like mushrooms and cheese included in the loaf. Harry quite liked that, and the chasseur chicken, and the Chicken-and-Egg Fricassée, but one thing he wasn't sure about was the fried haunch of zebra.

In fact, everyone was a bit iffy about that one, except for the two obligate carnivores at the feast. June came over to get a plateful, carefully using a levitation spell to move her plate, and Tanisis asked permission before moving the whole rest of the haunch over to Ravenclaw.

As the puddings were coming out, Harry happened to notice as Tyler (or was it Taira? He still didn't know) snuck around the side of the hall before getting Professor Snape's attention.

Trying not to stare, but still curious, Harry watched as the Slytherin head of house listened for a long moment before getting up. The two of them left through the staff entrance at the back of the Great Hall, and Harry wondered what was going on.

Hopefully it didn't revolve around a pet.

"I wonder how the House-Elves decide what to make," Hermione said, inspecting the chocolate pumpkin. "There's so many of them, they must have hundreds or thousands of years of experience between them."

"Well, yeah," Ron agreed. "That's why it's so good."

He indicated the pumpkin with his fork. "Are you going to have all of that, or should we share?"

"...Ron," Hermione began. "This is bigger than my head."

"So that's a no?" Ron asked.

"Of course I'm all right sharing it," Hermione sighed. "It'll probably take all of us to make a good start on it."

She cut into it with her knife, sawing back and forth to cut it more easily, and revealed that beneath the thick outer shell of chocolate it was filled with alternating layers of brownie and sponge cake stuck together with caramel.

"I'm pretty sure that would be the kind of thing a really posh family would show off at a party," Dean said, as Hermione cut herself a slice before starting on one for Ron. "And I mean, really posh. Like, lords and stuff."

Ron's slice was done, and Hermione moved it over to his plate. He cut a bit off with his spoon and took a nibble, then frowned and looked down at it.

"Something wrong?" Neville asked.

"Not really," Ron replied, loading up his spoon again. "I'm just surprised they managed to get the brownie to taste of lemons as well as chocolate."

"Sounds nice," Harry said, wondering if you could use magic to arrange food.

Sure, you couldn't use it to conjure or transfigure food – unless you had some and used magic to make it so you had more than you started with – but would you be able to make a brownie and a sponge cake, and some chocolate, then magically arrange them into the pumpkin shape?

Would you be able to make it in another shape?

"Oh, wow," Neville said, now with a slice of his own. "You're right, that's really impressive."

"Want me to take over, Hermione?" Harry offered. "It looks like that's hard to cut."

"Thanks," Hermione agreed, relinquishing the knife gratefully.

Harry adjusted his grip a little, then sawed down into the pumpkin. His cut was a bit more wobbly than Hermione had managed, but it was also much faster – little curls of hardened chocolate left behind by his knife as he sliced downwards.

"Anyone else want a piece?" he asked.

As it turned out, quite a lot of people did.

A few minutes later, Harry had finished cutting, and was about to start eating when there was a loud ting sound – sort of like a bell – that resonated throughout the hall.

The hubbub of conversation died away, and everyone looked up to the top table.

"Thank you," Professor Dumbledore said, putting down a crystal goblet and returning his wand to wherever it was he kept it. "Regrettably, I am afraid that I will have to miss the rest of the meal because of one of my many duties. As this is such a dreadful shame, I recommend to all of the students here at Hogwarts that you do your best to end up with no more than two jobs."

He smiled brightly at everyone in the Great Hall. "If any further announcements have to be made, I am sure that our school mascot will do a wonderful job."

"Mascot!" Nora agreed, though Harry was aware he was the only one who understood what she'd said in the first place.

"Don't let me keep you from your food," Dumbledore added. "I recommend having a hot drink with your pudding, it really does make the experience much nicer."

Professor Flitwick tapped Professor Dumbledore on the wrist, and the tall man bent down to hear what his colleague had to say.

"Ah," he went on. "Professor Flitwick has just reminded me that there have not yet been any hot drinks provided. Just wait a minute, and I'm sure they will be."

Professor Snape was standing by the door of the staff entrance, looking vaguely disapproving of how long the Headmaster was taking. That made Harry wonder if it was something to do with Tom Riddle, or maybe a Slytherin house thing…

Dumbledore finally left, with a cheerful wave, and Harry decided that until he knew more that was no reason not to have pudding.

He spotted a plate of cream horns nearby, and snagged it so he could have one and offer them around to everyone sitting close to him. It wasn't quite the same as having some cream with the cake, maybe, but it was nice to have to combine the taste – and the same was true of the hot chocolate, which appeared about a minute later.

By the time they headed up to bed, not far from midnight, Harry was pleasantly full of all sorts of food and more than a little drowsy.

Professor Dumbledore hadn't come back in, but in a way that was good news – if there'd been a serious problem he was sure that the Professor would have come in and told everyone what was going on. Instead, it had been a normal Halloween feast… albeit one where it seemed like someone had given the House-Elves several recipe books and told them to come up with whatever they could think of.

"More exercise tomorrow," Neville said, mostly to himself, as they trudged up the last few stairs. "Or maybe the day after."

"No kidding," Seamus agreed. "Did you guys try the chocolate cobbler?"

"I was too full," Ron replied. "Full of pastry and chocolate."

"That's okay, chocolate cobbler's both..."

"I'm surprised they didn't make, I don't know… molten metal maltloaf for Harry or something," Dean said, then yawned.

"I think that'd be difficult to bake," Ron said, thinking. "Can't really get the oven hot enough. And if you do you might melt the oven… maybe you'd need to use magic."

Harry stayed awake long enough to clean his teeth, then curled up on the pile of letters on his bed and went to sleep in minutes.

Halloween was a nice part of the year, but he always seemed to eat too much.

AN:

I have surprising amounts of fun writing Wizarding food.