Since Harry did have more free time – and as the first week of term turned into a second week, he continued to have free time, even if it wasn't as much as before now that the homework cycle was more established – he decided that he could get away with not only the Unusually Shaped Club (which he told both Skara and Dominic about, as well as booking the room and making sure it didn't get in the way of anyone's Astronomy) but also the Dungeons and Dragons Club returning.

Because he wasn't yet sure who was going to be able to take part, instead of setting a time for that one Harry wrote that there'd be a meeting in the Great Hall at lunch on Saturday to decide what time to use in the first place.

He also considered the idea of maybe starting a new campaign with the Council of Wyrms stuff he'd got a year or two ago, but decided that it would probably be better to discuss with the people who would end up playing what sort of campaign they wanted. Including if they wanted to continue the campaign he'd been running in fourth year, because that one had sort of reached a natural conclusion but more in the way of the ending of a 'book' than the ending of a 'series'.

So it could keep going from there, or it could stop. Which was sort of a nice place to be in.

Harry also had this funny sort of idea of a campaign where everyone had two characters, one of them a dragon and the other one not a dragon. That way there could be dragon-rider bits, and there could be dragon bits where the rider was helping out – a bit like Pern, though he thought there'd probably need to be a bit more fighting than on Pern.

Maybe if what the dragons were fighting was an invasion by demons, or something?

"So, we've all had enough lessons to have an idea what NEWTs are like," Dean said, on Saturday morning. "What does everyone think?"

"Silent casting is a right mind job," Neville admitted. "I hope I get the hang of it soon, it feels like it's everywhere I look."

"What, including Herbology?" Ron asked.

Neville shrugged. "You'd be surprised how helpful it is to be able to cast spells silently when the cobra lilies are around, it means they don't get as much warning."

Ron started sniggering.

"Something wrong?" Neville asked.

"No, just…" Ron waved his hand. "I almost complained about – what right did Herbology have to suddenly get awesome?"

Hermione hadn't said anything, but started to giggle as well.

"What's that about, then?" Dean asked.

"Oh, probably that I made that up about the cobra lilies," Neville told him airily.

"So what is Herbology like, then?" Harry said. "I assume it's more dangerous plants?"

Neville frowned, looking like he was seriously thinking about his answer.

"Some of them are," he said, eventually. "But there's other stuff that's more to do with plants that can only be harvested in tricky ways. Sometimes it's both, like the snargaluff we've got some time later in the year."

"NEWT Herbology is intended to make sure the student can deal with any magical plants in any environment," Hermione supplied. "So we'll also be doing some stuff about how they can go wrong or get sick, though I think a lot of that's going to be in Seventh Year."

"Actually, how's Potions going?" Harry asked. "You're the only one still doing that, I think."

"Well, Professor Snape has been explaining how to fix potions that have gone wrong – it's a lot like Herbology in that respect," Hermione told them. "And we keep going away from the recipes in the books, like we did sometimes at OWL level, but this time the differences are really big."

Everyone seemed interested in hearing a bit more, even Neville (whose relationship with Potions class had never been more than a slightly nervous truce), and Hermione drummed her fingers on the table.

"Well, there's one where the Potions textbook says that you should stir counterclockwise," she explained. "And Professor Snape had half of us do that, but the other half had to make seven counterclockwise stirs followed by one clockwise one. I had one of the just-counterclockwise ones, and it came out okay, but the ones with one clockwise stir came out amazing."

"And I bet you took notes on that, then," Ron said.

Hermione went slightly pink. "I… actually wrote them all over my textbook as corrections."

Everyone else stared at her.

"There wasn't anywhere else I was sure they'd stay with the recipe!" she defended herself. "And it is my book… why are you all looking at me like that?"

"Mostly checking you haven't spontaneously combusted," Dean answered.

Hermione tutted. "Honestly… well, you're doing Divination, still, what's that like?"

"We haven't had Firenze yet, so still wondering about that," Dean replied. "It's getting more into the really weird stuff, though, like Ornithomancy. I pointed out that I was a bird half the time, and asked what that meant, and she asked if I ever got lost while I was a bird."

He frowned. "And… now she mentions it, I don't? Or I always know how to get back to where I started, anyway. But that's more that thing where birds know where they're going, like carrier pigeons."

"Or owls," Ron said.

Dean waved a hand. "We're actually doing that in Care of Magical Creatures, now you mention it, it's kind of a learned magical ability where they picked it up from what were originally spells… anyway, it's specific to owls."

"So does that mean Care of Magical Creatures at NEWT level is more about how magical creatures happen?" Harry asked.

"A bit, and a bit more about… the really dangerous stuff, actually," Dean said. "Professor Kettleburn mentioned the idea of a field trip to Africa to see a Nundu, and I'm not quite sure he was joking…"

"Maybe you could use Divination to find out?" Harry suggested.

"Might work," Dean replied. "Or I could just ask Ron's brother Charlie."

The next thing that came up was Alchemy, and since Harry and Hermione were the only two doing it – and Hermione said that she didn't want to explain what every subject was like, she'd done Potions – it was up to Harry to try and summarize it.

"It's kind of… some bits of it are almost like writing," he said, after a bit. "Or like really early science, you know, before it was all people in white coats in labs saying that there was a high probability of something and when it was people dropping rocks off the Leaning Tower of Pisa to see if they hit the ground at the same time."

"You were dropping rocks out the window?" Neville asked, dubious. "That's what I got from that."

Harry sniggered. "No, it's more – half of what you're doing is working in metaphors, and the other half is materials stuff. But while in Potions there's a bit of that, in Alchemy it's almost all you do. It's really interesting, but I think you need to be able to approach problems sideways."

After a bit of thought, he decided to try explaining with an example. "So… if you wanted to make some material that weighed less than nothing – the sort of thing that would float up into the air if it was by itself – you probably could do that with alchemy. But you'd need to add in the, the lightness of something that got moved around easily – like a feather, or balsa wood – and then, I don't know, pass helium through while it was hot?"

Harry waved his paw a bit. "And you'd need to make sure it kept the properties you wanted to keep, like durability and stuff. I'm not sure if that example would work, either, I'd need to test it first and look up how to transfer those properties."

"So basically it's the sort of thing that would make John Clark give you a big wet kiss on the muzzle," Ron summarized.

That got a series of blank looks.

"The bloke from that rocket fuel book you got me, Harry," Ron clarified. "He'd love being able to basically just pick a set of chemical and physical properties off a list, especially if the stuff you did it to had the storage properties of… like… water, or if it smelled like this d-limonene stuff which smells of citrus fruits."

He looked momentarily contemplative. "Maybe I could replace the fuel system… nah, too much work using peroxide now. I might ask for an alchemy thing at some point though, if you can help with it."

Harry shrugged. "Why not?"

"What's Dumbledore like as a teacher, then?" Dean said.

"Kind of… Dumbledore, really," Harry replied. "He's a bit more organized than during dinners, I think, and you can really tell that he knows everything about this that's possible to know… which means he always says when he doesn't know something, too."

"I think the biggest difference from most classes is that he seems to want not to have us memorize things," Hermione contributed.

She thought about that. "That not could have gone somewhere else in that sentence… anyway, he doesn't want us to remember alchemical recipes, he wants us to learn how to do Alchemy."

Harry nodded, thinking that that was an excellent way of putting it.

"What about Runes, then?" Neville said. "I know everyone else except Dean is doing it, it must be good."

"There's loads to keep track of," Ron told him. "I hope in the NEWT exams we're allowed to take in some kind of dictionary or whatever, I don't want to have to learn more than a dozen languages – but it is kind of neat, especially that some languages actually make it easier to do some rune effects."

He paused. "Or harder, depending how you think about it."

Dean frowned. "That's not just saying the same thing twice, right?"

"No, it is different," Harry agreed. "It's like how you might be able to do something with a seven rune sequence in Futhark, while in Nahautl it'll just be one rune to have the same effect… but that one rune is really complicated."

Neville and Dean considered that for several seconds.

"Sometimes I'd take that," Neville decided.

"I think that's the point," Harry nodded. "So, what's Arithmancy like?"

Neville waved his hand. "It's kind of… you know how what we were doing in OWLs was mostly taking a spell, then working forwards with what happens if you change the mechanics of it? So if you change the words, that kind of thing?"

He shrugged. "It's like that, but… almost the reverse? You're instead aiming for an effect, and it's how to work backwards from the effect to the words, but you have to make some educated guesses apparently because otherwise it's stupidly complicated. And there's some kind of weird thing where you use another bit of Arithmancy to predict which way of approaching the first bit of Arithmancy will be most likely to work the way you want it to."

"It's reverse engineering," Hermione added. "Only you sort of do it from the middle as well as the end, and you try and end up with something that's consistent – though a lot of what's in the textbook is about how you do what they call pruning, and the ways to do that that are most efficient. It's really interesting."

"It sounds it, but also really hard to follow," Harry admitted.

"Oh, it is," Hermione agreed.

Ron whistled. "I sort of worry about touching those, then."

"Ron," Hermione began. "You're building a space rocket. Have you given any thought about how to steer it?"

"Well, yeah, of course," Ron replied, shrugging. "I don't want to get lost and fly into the moon at a speed of Lots. There's those magical things you get in astronomy shops which show the sun and the moon and planets and stuff, I thought I'd maybe try and make something – or get something made – which shows where those things are going to be and have it show my rocket too."

"And that doesn't seem… I don't know, harder than NEWT level Arithmancy?" Dean asked.

"Well, someone can do those magical things you get in astronomy shops," Ron answered. "And some of what we're doing in Astronomy now is predicting forwards where things are going to be. And really all you're doing is showing what's already there, plus time."

He shrugged again. "It might take ages, sure. But I don't think I'll need it to get to space, because if things go really wrong when I'm going to space I can use a Portkey or Apparate or whatever because I'll be closer to the ground than… um… Manchester, I think. And I know people can Apparate from here to Manchester."

"Not sure why you'd bother, though," Dean opined. "Their football team's overrated in my opinion."

Harry didn't say anything.

Early that afternoon, things finally lined up so there were Quidditch trials.

It was a new experience for Harry to be watching Quidditch trials, because there hadn't been Gryffindor Quidditch trials while he was at Hogwarts. Or, at least, there hadn't been Gryffindor Quidditch trials while he'd been in any way eligible to take part – First-years weren't allowed their own broomsticks and as he understood it the broomstick was an essential part of the game, even if you were allowed to temporarily jump off if you were Ginny Weasley (or words to that effect).

Now Harry thought about it, there probably had been some kind of trials in his First Year, just to make sure they filled the two openings that had been filled that year (one Chaser, Katie, and Cormac starting his somewhat confusing stint with the team). But what he'd done to get onto the team hadn't really counted as a proper trials, and nor had what Ginny and Ron had done… or maybe it had?

Harry shook his head. It definitely hadn't been anything like this, where there were no fewer than five slots that needed to be filled – two Beaters and three Chasers – since Fred, George, Angelina and Alicia had all graduated and Katie said she had to focus too much on her NEWTs owing to trouble in her Arithmancy lessons.

Ron said it was a shame not to have her, but on the other hand it'd probably have meant he'd not have ended up as the Quidditch captain in the first place – and it also meant he'd only have to do the trials once.

"So how is this meant to be organized?" Dean said. "Is it in order, like, different places first?"

Ron frowned. "Actually, I'm not sure… well, I'm the Keeper, so we know that much…"

He thought about it for a few seconds, then pointed at the gaggle of hopefuls – Harry could see Cormac, plus lots of people from Fifth Year and below. And Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail were hard to miss, with Mopsy apparently having been elected to hold their broomstick in her muzzle.

"Okay, you lot!" he called. "Break into teams of three and we'll see how you do."

"Do we count as a one or a three?" Cottontail asked. "We're really good at teamwork, but we can only be in one place at a time."

"Blimey, straight in with the hard questions," Ron muttered. "Dunno. Any ideas, Dean?"

"I'm probably the one who knows the least of us about Quidditch," Dean countered.

"But you are the one who knows the most about finding ways around rules," Ron countered.

Dean nodded, almost against his will. "Then… hmm, they'd probably count as three. Because there's three names involved."

He shrugged. "Sorry."

"Nah, it's okay, we'll give you all a go anyway," Ron decided. "Just… probably best if you don't go first? It's for, um, slobber reasons."

"Is that the first time anyone's ever said that in relation to Quidditch?" Flopsy said, giggling, as a few of the other potential Chasers made faces and ew sounds.

"Not if there's been a really long match with a team with a werewolf on it," Neville guessed.

Ron waved off to the side. "Anyone who's here just to try for Beater, you can sit over there if you want; anyone who's here to try for both, I guess go over there after we've picked who's going to act as Chasers for that bit? We'll work it out."

Ron's test for the Chasers was pretty simple, really. The first thing he had them do was fly in formation, to see if they could, then if there was a group who simply couldn't fly in formation properly he swapped them around and did it again to see who the problem was.

That by itself weeded out a surprising number of people. Euan Abercrombie from Second Year actually crashed, going too wide on a turn and hitting the supports for one of the goal hoops, and a quick spell from Hermione caught him before he hit the ground.

"I wonder how that happened?" Harry said.

"Maybe he just hasn't practiced on a broom in ages?" Dean guessed. "I wouldn't want to get on one now and try anything tricky, I've barely used one since First Year."

Harry supposed that made sense – he hadn't been on a broom all that often because he could fly without one, like Dean, and if he had to ride a bicycle today he'd have a bit of trouble adjusting for how his wings affected it.

Maybe he should get some practice in again one of these days, even if there weren't many places wizards could ride brooms without being seen. It'd be good to keep in practice. (And it might be interesting to see how bad he was with a bike now.)

"Okay!" Ron called, eventually, his voice echoing a bit because of a Sonorus spell. "Next bit is I want to check how good your shots on goal are. That means I'll be defending, and if you get Quaffles past me that'll be great – but just being on target is good, we've got training to do once a team's been picked."

"Bugger," Dean muttered.

Harry turned to see what the problem was, confused, and saw that Dean was struggling with a big pile of fabric.

"I tried to make it so it got bigger when it got waved, but the enchantment went a bit wrong," he explained. "Mind giving me some help?"

Quite willing to lend a paw, Harry helped his friend disentangle the fabric of what turned out to be a banner, then wave it. It had been about eight feet long, but when it was waved it was suddenly forty feet long and decorated with seven lions that threw back their heads and roared.

On broomsticks.

"How come only one of them's got a mane?" Neville said.

"I'm going to add more manes depending on who makes the team," Dean explained. "You know, manes for blokes. I knew at least one would be a bloke because, well, Ron."

Harry stopped waving it, and suddenly it was back to about two feet long.

"There we go," Dean nodded, pleased. "At least that bit works."

Harry looked back to the trials just in time to see Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail take a shot on goal.

Flopsy and Cottontail were holding the Quaffle between them, both girls cooperating to keep it steady in the absence of arms, and then as they got close Mopsy headed the ball to flick it towards a different hoop to the one they'd been aiming for.

It would have been very impressive if it had gone within five feet of making it in.

"Not bad, actually," Ron decided. "Clever trick if you can practice it!"

It took another fifteen or twenty minutes of shuffling around and shots on goal to get the Chasers sorted out, and once they were Harry was kind of amused at how different they looked.

Cormac – a Seventh Year and big with it – had enough experience training with the team that he'd ended up on the likely starting lineup, along with Demelza Robins (a Third Year girl who seemed to have quite good reflexes) and Dennis, who was small enough already and next to Cormac looked like they hadn't been drawn at the same scale.

If they stood in a line it looked almost like a diagram of someone growing up, with the only thing really spoiling it being that Demelza was in the middle and it made it look like the person had briefly been a girl before turning back into a boy.

"All right, that's you lot picked," Ron said. "And we've already got our Seeker, so now we're on to the Beaters."

He shrugged, the movement small with distance but big enough to see. "And that means the rest of you get to fly around in circles while I watch our potential Beaters hit Bludgers at you. Who's going to volunteer to get the Bludgers out?"

One of the downsides of being around for Beater selection, as Harry found out, was that by definition not everyone who wanted to be a Beater had much experience. In fact, almost nobody had any experience.

More so than other positions – even Seeker – you couldn't practice most of being a Beater in a pick-up game during summer even if you had access to a broomstick, and one of the things that had made Fred and George so effective was that they had good control of where the balls went when they hit them… and a good sense of how to make sure the balls didn't go anywhere they weren't meant to go.

The most blatant illustration of how this simply wasn't true for some of the prospective Beaters was when one of Ginny's Fifth Year friends had a go. He hit the Bludger with a wild swing, sent it arcing off into the stands, and Harry had to leap up and catch it before it broke some of the seats.

"Okay, good arm, but maybe not this year!" Ron judged. "Thanks, Harry."

Harry's wings flared for leverage, then he managed to force the Bludger to the floor and someone came flying over to pick it up.

"I'll handle it," she said – it was Melody, the vampire second-year – and Harry leaned back a bit, then watched as she took a firm hold of it and tucked it under her arm.

It was clearly trying to get away, but all it was doing was making Melody's broomstick jink back and forth slightly.

"Okay, we're giving you a go!" Ron told her. "Chasers, you fly a V formation, and Melody, you see if you can knock the Bludger at them!"

It wasn't quite as simple as that, because Melody did need to get hold of a Beater's club, but once she was done with that Cormac led the other two in a first-world-war-style 'Vic' with the Quaffle under his arm.

Melody tossed the Bludger into the air with her right hand, then swung the bat in her left past her right ear to wind up, and hit the Bludger towards the Chaser formation. It didn't quite hit, but it passed neatly through the gap in the V – something which made Dennis yelp – and curved around to come back and hit someone else when another of the Beater hopefuls knocked it away again.

"Now that's what I like to see!" Ron enthused. "Let's try that again!"

Twenty minutes later, it seemed fairly clear who the whole Gryffindor lineup would be.

Ginny was naturally the Seeker and Ron the Keeper, the Chasers had already been worked out, and Melody was far and away the best Beater candidate. She had to wear a particularly wide wizarding hat during the practice sessions to keep off the sun, and she said she'd be wearing it during all the games as well, but it didn't seem to give her any problems with situational awareness – and she was good enough in other ways that Ron had no reservations picking her.

Testing out her ability to get past a defending Beater had turned up two more promising Beaters, and after some agonizing about it Ron picked Jimmy Peakes as the first-team Beater and asked Ritchie Coote to keep coming along to give them practice, and they might swap around depending on how it went.

"Phew," he said, exhaling, and flying his broom closer to the bit of the stands where Harry was. "I don't know how Oliver did it."

"Is it legal to have someone who's got the kind of advantage Melody has?" Neville checked. "I know you got away with Harry, and you and Ginny are both Animagi, but sooner or later someone's going to complain."

"Actually I think they've just decided to join us," Dean supplied.

He waved vaguely in the direction of the castle. "I heard this morning, Isaac's the new Slytherin Keeper."

They all thought about the benefits of wings for hoop coverage.

"This is going to be an interesting year," Ron decided. "Why do you ask, Nev? Looking for a place?"

"I said no thanks," Neville replied.

"It'd be good to know how good you are with a bat, at least," Ron said. "I'll drop it, but you never know, everyone else might get sick."

"If you get to the point you're picking people out of the crowd, I'll reluctantly volunteer," Neville decided.

He seemed to be thinking about something, then sighed. "And I'll see what I can do with a bat."

Neville's aim wasn't very good, but he made up for it in force.

"...so I've got a question," Ginny said, that evening, as the new Quidditch team had dinner together (which translated to Harry also being close enough at the Gryffindor table to listen in, because it wasn't like they could go out for a meal in Hogsmeade when Melody was a Second-Year). "And I'm sorry if this is an offensive joke, Melody, but does your being a Beater make it that you're using a vampire bat?"

"I'll just have to make sure I don't put it under my cloak," Melody replied. "I think there's a rule against a vampire bat coming out from under someone's cloak at a Quidditch match."

September did its usual trick of going along all Septemberish until it suddenly became October, and Harry found himself with an unusual problem in the Dungeons and Dragons club – that being that there were a lot of people involved, enough that he really could have split it into two games.

Most of the new people were in First Year and Second Year, while the returning group was all much older students – Colin and Tanisis were the youngest – and after thinking about it for a bit (and checking if anyone was interested in running a game themselves, which got no takers) Harry decided instead to try something new by making the new player characters into apprentices for the older ones.

The idea had originally come from some of the longer-running fantasy series he'd read, the ones where a lot of time passed in the story (like in the Earthsea books, which showed different periods in Sparrowhawk's life). It still meant the fights that happened were big and complicated, but it meant that he could sort of treat the groups as 'pairs' instead of thinking of them individually and it meant nobody was really being neglected in terms of the amount of focus time they got.

What that did mean was that he gave Ron and the others a few free levels, so they were all sort of past the point they had to go out adventuring, then he made it so there was a big serious thing starting to happen involving Mordor and Sauron and all the bits he'd left out of the Lord of the Rings side of the story until now. That meant there was a good reason for everyone to be travelling together to find out what was going on – he'd put in some bits to confuse Neville in particular, who he knew had read the books – and that when it was time for someone to go off scouting it could be both Su's Rohan shieldmaiden and her character's apprentice. And when there was some research to do inside a library, it could be Ron's character Toskr's wizardly apprentice – played by a Slytherin first-year called Maximus – with Toskr himself standing on the poor apprentice's shoulder and telling him which way to look and what book to get down and of course you need to open the book for me, have you seen the size of my paws?

Sometimes it was a bit clunky, but there were plenty of moments which just gave everyone a case of the giggles. Including when Colin played his character trying to work out how to teach spells which required hand-waving to his apprentice (a warg – who, naturally, didn't have hands).

Strangely that wasn't the character played by Matthew Forrester, who'd opted to play a Dwarf from Erebor.

"Alchemy homework is weird," Harry said, leaning back in his chair a little.

That wasn't as easy as it probably would have been if the chair had been designed for dragons, but it wasn't that bad.

"Why's that?" Dean asked.

"Well, it's kind of…" Harry waved his paw. "You know how in Potions homework we had to write an essay on the recipe for a potion, and why each of the bits did what they did?"

There were nods from all around their table. (Which meant three nods. Hermione knew what Harry was talking about, and was in the middle of doing Potions homework herself.)

"With Alchemy, you have to more, um… you still write out the recipe, but instead of it just being that there's one proper answer, you have to come up with the process yourself – it's more of a process than a recipe," Harry clarified, wanting to avoid confusion. "And Dumbledore will take just about anything so long as the explanations make a sort of sense to you. Sometimes we then do one of them in class."

He pointed down at what he was working on. "So this one is about making wood so it doesn't catch fire, and it's kind of tricky because a lot of the things which are thought of as fireproof are really fire resistant… so if you tried sprinkling in little bits of iron, iron dust is actually burned in fireworks so that's no good."

"Water, then?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, water's a good one, but you need to make sure it's just that property," Harry agreed. "Another one would be asbestos, because the whole thing with asbestos is that it's about not burning, but it's also really kind of dangerous… so the idea I came up with was that instead of using water you use ash. And… rust, and also nitrogen gas if you can get hold of it, because all of those things either have already burned and won't burn again – or they can't help with burning, at least."

"I know we haven't done much chemistry at Hogwarts, but isn't burning stuff turning them into oxides?" Dean said. "I remember that from some school science program my sister was watching. And I've heard of nitrous oxide."

"I think that's more one of those things where it's a weird chemical that's to be burned, not that's been burned," Ron supplied. "Nitrous oxide turns into nitrogen and oxygen and gives off energy, not the other way around. It can get used as a monopropellant."

"So if you've decided what to use, then you have to say what you'd do, right?" Neville checked.

"That bit's a bit easier, because a lot of the ways to transfer different properties are in the textbook," Harry said, gratefully. "And how something reacts when it gets hot is in there."

"Well, there is stuff which burns when you set fire to it and melts when you heat it up, don't forget," Hermione warned. "So you want to avoid accidentally making wood that goes soft when it gets hot – you want it to act like wood except it doesn't catch fire."

"Right," Harry agreed. "But it's still weird to have a subject where whatever you write on your homework, it's not wrong unless it doesn't work when you try it..."

While classes were going well – if a bit puzzling at times – the Unusually Shaped society had started to get big enough that it had a different feeling to before.

That wasn't really a problem, as such, because it was still possible to talk about problems and make sure they were solved (and in many cases June or Harry could solve the problems in question with their Prefect powers, or just with advice, rather than having to ask a teacher for assistance) but it meant that even in the first meeting in October they still hadn't actually properly introduced everyone yet.

Harry didn't think it was a problem. He'd asked both Skara and Dominic if they wanted to say who they were first or if they wanted to wait, and the goblin and the manticore had both requested that they go later in the process so they could see what everyone else's ones were like.

(Harry wondered vaguely if that was a not-a-Gryffindor thing, or whether it wasn't helpful to try and break it down that way.)

Eventually, though, Isaac finished talking about how he'd grown up (in Liverpool, actually – there was a hidden street there sort of like Diagon Alley – which was how he'd got to know the person who'd helped him learn to speak English) and how he'd been learning how to pronounce English for a lot longer than it had taken to learn how to understand the language.

"I know the feeling," June commiserated. "It took me ages to get some of the syllables right. It's funny, we still speak English back home, or sort of do – but it's a version which we can pronounce naturally, and I didn't realize how much it had drifted."

Conal stifled a laugh.

"I asked my father what you were saying, once," he explained. "He said that you were being perfectly clear and I wasn't listening clearly. I only really get what he means now."

"Is that what happened with dragons, then?" Tanisis checked.

Harry shook his head. "I went to find out at a dragon reserve," he explained. "So far only dragons raised at Hogwarts speak Dragonish."

"Now that is weird," Conal opined.

"I don't think it's strange at all," Luna replied, with a pleasant smile. "This is a school, after all, and where else to learn languages?"

That produced several looks of contemplation.

"I… think that works, actually," Tanisis said.

Anne clapped her hands. "So! Let's hear from the new kids, it's been long enough."

"Want to flip a coin to see who goes first?" Tyler added, offering a Knut.

"No, I'll go, unless Dominic wants to," Skara volunteered.

Dominic shrugged his wings, and so Skara nodded. "Right. So. Basically, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm a goblin."

"Huh," Anne said, looking closer. "Yeah, I can see it now you mentioned it."

Skara shook her head. "Yeah, yeah… anyway, my mum and dad both work for Gringotts, but unlike what a lot of people think not all goblins work for Gringotts."

Isaac tilted his head. "So… what do they do, then?"

"Well… you know, stuff," Skara frowned. "Shopkeepers, people who make things…"

"Oh, I think I get it!" Cottontail realized. "You mean that a lot of goblins work in kind of… support positions for Gringotts and the people who work there, instead of at Gringotts. And we mostly only see the ones who work at Gringotts."

"Right!" Skara agreed. "And they do work for other people, too, so one of my mum's friends works making the iron for those Firebolt brooms."

Harry decided to ask a question which had been bothering him. "So – I know that people who aren't human coming to Hogwarts is kind of… new… but were there any goblins who didn't get the chance in your year?"

"Not really," Skara shrugged. "There's a lot less goblins than there are humans to begin with, and we live kind of a long time – my mum's, er, I should say my dad, that's more polite. My dad's fifty-seven. So there's only a goblin kid every few years to start with."

"Still more goblins than most non-human types in the United Kingdom, probably," Anna guessed.

"Yeah, probably," Skara agreed. "It's kind of… if there were more goblin kids, there'd be more goblins."

"I'm guessing you mostly have to live underground?" Melody said. "Snap."

Skara nodded, then looked puzzled. "Well, we do live underground, I wouldn't say we have to… there's some of us who live in Hogsmeade, I think, and in other places, but mostly we just live underground because that's where the space is."

"I wouldn't want to live underground all the time," Dominic winced, and there were a few nods of agreement – mostly from the Forbidden Forest dwellers, along with Tanisis.

Harry didn't think he'd mind as long as there was a library down there or something, and he supposed that kitsune (who were after all a bit like foxes) were probably okay with being underground.

And wasn't there a famous three headed dog who lived in the Underworld? Maybe that was why the Barlos girls didn't have the same sort of reaction.

"Where do you live, then, out of interest?" Tyler said.

He'd said it looking at Dominic, but unfortunately Isaac was past where Dominic was from Tyler's point of view, and so the griffin answered first. "That hidden street in the Dingle, it's not like it's tiny or anything, there's space to go outside…"

He trailed off. "Oh, right, sorry…"

"No, it's fine." Dominic assured him. "And for me – I'm actually from the Scilly Isles, or that's where I grew up anyway. It's one of those hidden ones, I think wizards used to live there as well but they moved away before I was old enough to remember them."

His tail waved slightly. "We have to get permission before leaving, because we can't Apparate and so someone has to help us with a Portkey or something, but it means there's enough space to stretch your wings at least. Good surfing, too."

"I bet you're looking forward to Sixth Year," Harry said, smiling. "I know I'm looking forward to learning to Apparate."

"Yeah," Dominic agreed. "That's going to be cool."

He nodded to himself. "Anyway, well… Professor Dumbledore spoke to my mum a couple of years ago about me coming to Hogwarts, and she told me it was a really big chance and I had to make sure I was on my best behaviour."

"Yeah, that happens," Anne agreed.

Tiobald added something.

"It's a good thing you weren't here last year, because best behaviour last year was really hard," Luna relayed, then elaborated. "That was because of Dolores Umbridge, but Daddy thinks she's actually trying to spread tolerance and stuff because of how bad she was at being prejudiced."

The selkie signed something, then, and Luna brightened. "Oh, that sounds like a good idea. Dominic, Tiobald wants to know if he could visit you over a holiday some time. If you've got good beaches then it sounds like it might be a nice visit for a few days."

"I'd have to check with my mum," Dominic admitted. "She's kind of protective, but… yeah, maybe."

AN:

Really, Snape should just write a book.

Might want to keep the custom spells out of it, though.

Any suggestion that Isaac grew up in the Liverpool Avalon will be slightly inaccurate.